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HELIOTYPE REPRODUCTION 
FBOM 

A DAGUERREOTYPE PORTRAIT OF THEODORE PARKER, 
TAKEN AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-NINE. 



Theodore Parker 



A BIOGRAPHY. 



BY 



OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM. 



'EEHi.dKSI 




BOSTON: 4 
[JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 

(LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.) 
1874. 



f&<* 



$£<& 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



Boston : 
Rand, Avery, & Co., Stereotypers and Printers. 



PREFACE. 



The friends of Theodore Parker's ideas, as well as 
the lovers of his person, thinking that his day was not 
done, but was rather about to break, have long wished 
that he might be introduced to a new public by a new 
biography. The " Life " by John Weiss, written as soon 
as possible after Mr. Parker's decease, and published in 
1 863, for obvious reasons failed to command the atten- 
tion it deserved. Being issued in two large volumes, 
it proved to be too heavy for general circulation, besides 
being too costly for general purchase. Another draw- 
back to popular favor was found in the space given to 
letters and discussions, which, however interesting in 
themselves, and however important as contributions to 
thought, had the effect of blurring the outline of his 
individuality. But a disadvantage more serious, per- 
haps, than either of these, was the publication of the 
work at a time when the destinies of the nation hung 
on a thread, and the crowding events of the war pushed 
into obscurity nearly all memories, and allowed the pub- 
lic eye to rest only on such men as the combat made 
famous. 

The clearing-away of the war-cloud displays once 
more the figure of Theodore Parker as one of the 



IV PREFACE. 

nation's true prophets, and at the same time reveals a 
country prepared in some degree to receive the best 
results of his thought and experience. In the hope 
that these results may be appreciated better than 
hitherto, this memoir is written. The author's aim 
has been simply to recover and present the person of 
Mr. Parker with all simplicity, omitting some details 
which Mr. Weiss's valuable biography will supply to the 
more searching student, and making prominent the 
mental and moral traits which concern the miscella- 
neous public. 

The present biographer, in addition to the materials 
that were placed in the hands of Mr. Weiss, has been 
intrusted with many private letters and personal remi- 
niscences, which enable him to fill out his picture with 
more delicate touches. From old sources and new it 
has been his delightful task to extract the qualities of 
the man in such a way, that the records, literary and 
historical, may reveal, and not cumber or cloak, his 
form. Should the portrait be unfaithful or inadequate, 
the artist alone will be at fault. 

Or rather let me say, should it be unfaithful ; for 
inadequate it must be in the judgment of many, and 
chiefly of those who knew Mr. Parker most intimately. 
There was more in him than any one mind, even the 
most candid and sympathetic, could see ; and there was 
much in him that few, if any, were ever permitted to see ; 
the private journal, to which he committed his most 
secret thoughts, containing many things of deep signifi- 
cance as illustrations of his interior life, which could 
not with the least propriety be published, even when 
their meaning is clear, and which often need interpre- 
tation. None of them exhibit qualities inconsistent 



PREFACE. . V 

with a very noble character ; but some of them point 
to secret recesses of feeling which cannot be un- 
covered. 

A few months before his death, to an intimate friend 
who put a question in regard to his literary executor 
he said, " If any one writes my life, I think it will be 
George Ripley : he, better than any one, understands 
my philosophy, and what I meant to do." — " But the 
personal life," said the friend : " who will write that ? 
When one has achieved such a character as yours, we 
long to know what elements have been wrought into 
it." — " That life," he answered with deep emotion, 
" cannot be written. I have been asked to employ 
these few remaining months in preparing an auto- 
biography. But it must be written in tears of blood, 
if at all." It never was written ; and only so much of 
the interior life as a plain record of thoughts and ac- 
tions exhibits can be disclosed. That will be quite 
enough for those who did not know him well : it will 
be all that is desired by those who did. 

O. B. F. 

New York, October, 1873. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Page. 
Birthplace and Parentage i • .. i 

CHAPTER II. 
Home and Boyhood . . 10 

CHAPTER III. 
Teaching and Study . . . . . • . « .28 

CHAPTER IV. 
Divinity Hall 41 

CHAPTER V. 
The Candidate 67 

CHAPTER VI. 
West Roxbury 88 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Ferment of Thought 125 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Unitarian Controversy 147 

CHAPTER IX. 
Europe 183 

CHAPTER X. 
The Conflict Renewed .210 

CHAPTER XI. 
The Pastor 241 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Pastor. — Specimens of Correspondence ...» 252 

vii 



viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Preacher 



Page. 

■ 332 



CHAPTER XIV. 
The Reformer . . 352 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Fight with Slavery yjd 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Kansas War 435 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Failing Health 477 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Departure. — The Search 508 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The Eternal City 521 

CHAPTER XX. 
Tributes . . . . ■ • 537 




THEODORE PARKER. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTHPLACE AND PARENTAGE. 



A stranger, visiting the place where Theodore Parker 
passed his early years, did not find it attractive. Explor- 
ing the neighborhood on a fair spring-day, he asked a 
man who was mending the road where Theodore Parker 
was born. The man leaned on his spade, stared at the 
traveller, looked puzzled, and replied, "Dunno." — "Are 
you a new-comer here ? " — " No, sir : lived here, man and 
boy, nigh on to forty year." — "Are there no Parkers 
about here?" — "Yes: there's tew lots on 'em." — "I 
wish to find the old Parker place," said the stranger. 
"Older'n creation, both on 'em," was the reply. "The 
Captain Parker place is the one I want." — "They run to 
cappens," was the exasperating rejoinder: "but I guess 
you had better take that 'ar road to the left, and go about 
a mile ; then turn down a lane, and at the end there's a 
monnerment that must be set up for Cappen Parker." 
The traveller, obeying the direction, found the monument 
that preserves the great preacher's memory. 

This incident tells many things : the limited influence 
of a great man's name ; the power of association to glorify 



2 THEODORE PARKER. 

ordinary spots ; the absence of neighborly feeling in rural 
populations ; and the crudeness of society within ten miles 
of the great city. What the tourist found on arriving at 
the place of his quest was much the same as what the 
boy whose name led him thither used to see. There 
was the old bell-tower, which had rung out the alarm 
on the eve of the battle of Lexington, and had done 
humbler service since as a workshop ; the broad stone 
ledge behind the house remained ; meadow, orchard, 
wood, were unchanged ; the ash-tree planted by Theo- 
dore — which showed its grief at his death by bearing but 
one crop of leaves instead of the two it displayed during 
his life — still held its place ; the double-headed pine, 
that seemed a wonder, was as much as ever a feature in 
the landscape : but the old house was gone. 

That was a hundred years old when Theodore saw the 
light; having been built in 17 10 by his great-grandfather, 
John Parker, who, with children and grandchildren, came 
to Lexington (then called Cambridge Farms) from Read- 
ing. John Parker was a grandson of Thomas, who came 
to America in 1635 m a ve ssel fitted out by Sir Richard 
Saltonstall, with whose family he was connected by mar- 
riage. He settled in Lynn ; received, as one of the 
earliest settlers of the town, forty acres of land ; and 
was made a freeman the year after landing. In 1640 he 
removed to Reading, was one of seven who founded the 
first church there, and there died in 1683. He was a 
man of character. His descendants were also serviceable 
in their places ; doing their part as land-surveyors, council- 
men, adjudicators of claims, teachers, militiamen, drill- 
masters, lieutenants, and captains. They had the fighting- 
temper in them, and made themselves felt in hard battle. 
Hananiah, the only grandson who did not come with John 
to Lexington, — a lad of eighteen, — was serving in a Mas- 
sachusetts regiment engaged in Virginia. 

If we trace the family across the water to England, we 



BIRTHPLACE AND PARENTAGE. 3 

find its roots deep down in the soil. Thomas came, per- 
haps, from a Lancashire stock, which was early trans- 
planted to Yorkshire, where some of them still live in a 
stately mansion-house of the time of Queen Elizabeth. 
The first who bore the name in England was a Norman, 
Johannes Le Parkerre. He followed William the Con- 
queror, and was keeper of the royal parks ; whence his 
name, variously spelled Parkerre, Parkre, Parchour, Par- 
ker. The name occurs frequently in history in different 
connections. Seldom good Churchmen, they were scat- 
tered much at the Reformation. Some were executed 
under Queen Mary ; some were Puritans under Cromwell. 
But others were true to the royalist party • lost their lands 
in consequence, and regained them when the king " came to 
his own again." The Parkers in England now are common- 
ly Churchmen and Tories. The religious and political tradi- 
tions of the family are mixed. The non-conformist blood, 
Puritan and Quaker, found its way into the New World. 

Theodore's grandfather, John Parker, born 1729, was a 
marked man. He was a sergeant in the French and In- 
dian war, and present at the capture of Quebec. A 
parishioner of the Rev. Jonas Clark, who had done his 
share in rousing the people to indignation against the 
British claims, he was ready for war when the time came ; 
answered at once the summons to resist the British at 
Lexington ; was present himself, though suffering from ill- 
ness, which exposure developed into a fatal disease ; drew 
up his troop of seventy men ; bade every man load his 
piece with powder and ball ; ordered them not to fire 
unless fired upon ; but added, " If they mean to have a 
war, let it begin here." At the battle of Bunker's Hill, 
Captain Parker took from a grenadier the weapon which, 
along with his own light fowling-piece, guarded the door 
of Theodore's study while he lived, and now hangs in the 
Massachusetts Senate Chamber. 

The people of Lexington were, like the country people 



4 THEODORE PARKER. 

of New England generally fifty years ago, industrious 
after a homely and unenterprising fashion, but not spe- 
cially thrifty. Their land was poor, their toil hard, their 
wealth small. Literary and social advantages were scanty. 
There were no lectures, clubs, or associations for culture. 
A small library contained three or four hundred volumes, 
chiefly novels, biographies, books of travel, with a few 
popular histories. About a dozen volumes, light reading 
for the most part, were added yearly. The cost of a share 
was ten dollars. The library stood near by the meeting- 
house, nearly three miles off from the Parker residence : 
hence the custom of exchanging books on Sunday. 
While some went to the library for books, others went to 
Dudley's tavern, which was also hard by, to talk politics, 
tell stories, and drink. The drinking habits of the period 
were pure and simple. Instead of being apologized for, 
they were commended on social and on sanitary grounds. 
Drink was regarded as the poor man's food, the laboring 
man's strength. It was introduced on sacred occasions as 
a thing of course. One of the earliest recorded instances 
of its disuse at funerals seems to have been at the house of 
Mr. Parker, on the occasion of his grandmother's death. 

There was but one meeting-house in the village, the 
minister of which was a Unitarian. The people, to a very 
large extent, shared his opinions. In fact, the germs of 
the later more cultivated rationalism were sprouting in 
these New-England communities. The doctrines of the 
Puritan theology had lost their hold on an unimagina- 
tive people ; and with them the fervors of the evangelical 
spirit had declined. The sinfulness of human nature, the 
need of redemption, the deity of Christ, the atoning effi- 
cacy of his blood, the necessity of inward renewal by the 
grace of God, the worthlessness of morality, the everlast- 
ingness of future punishment, the consciousness of ac- 
ceptance, the immanence of Christ in the Church, the 
eternity of bliss for believers, were all more or less 



BIRTHPLACE AND PARENTAGE. 5 

thoughtfully rejected by men whose sober lives had settled 
down into prose, and whose experience suggested little 
of mystery. The preaching lacked inspiration : even the 
prayers were didactic. The best of the clergy were men 
of letters, rarely prophets : the worst were neither. Church- 
es were closed to Whitefield before Theodore Parker was 
born. The seats of culture dreaded the influence of the 
famous preacher of revivals ; the clergy encouraged the 
laity to frown down extravagant views ; the sacraments had 
lost their charm ; the mystery had departed from the com- 
munion ; baptism was rarely administered ; heads of fami- 
lies were commonly church-members, the younger people 
seldom ; family prayers were infrequent ; grace before meat 
was unusual ; the clergyman was respected as a man of edu- 
cation ; the sabbath was observed punctually ; the Bible 
was read ; but the soul of the Protestant faith had fled. 

The parents of Theodore Parker shared the . spiritual 
life of their time, — the father holding the rational views 
with something more than the usual positiveness of 
conviction, the mother with something more than the 
usual depth of feeling ; while both added to them a good 
deal more than the average weight of character. John 
Parker, born Feb. 14, 1761, was a good specimen of the 
New-England countryman, — a " quiet, thoughtful, silent, 
reading man, of strong sense, of great moral worth, relia- 
ble, honorable ; worked every day and all day ; kept good 
discipline in his family ; governed easily ; taught his chil- 
dren to speak the truth ; always had a book in his hand 
in the evening." This is a grandson's testimony. His 
son described him from memory as a stout, able-bodied 
man, plain and solid. He could endure cold and heat, 
abstinence from food and rest. A skilful farmer, he was 
prevented by want of means from making costly improve- 
ments on his land ; but he had, perhaps, the best peach- 
orchard in Middlesex, and adopted nearly all the 
improvements in farming that had proved valuable. The 



6 THEODORE PARKER. 

farm-work, however, he left mainly to his boys, while he 
pursued his own occupation of mill-wright and pump- 
maker in the shop : for, like his father and grandfather 
before him, he was an ingenious mechanic, and worker in 
wood ; expert in making and repairing, as men need to be 
in a new country, where one must do the work of many. 
He put brains into his work ; originated new methods ; 
"made his head save his hands." 

Of course, he had little education, and no culture ; but 
of the raw material of mind he possessed a good deal : 
he was fond of intellectual things, read such books as he 
could reach, pondered hard questions, and turned over 
in his mind the higher problems in ethics and meta- 
physics. He was a fair arithmetician ; understood some- 
thing of algebra and geometry. He was interested in 
works on political economy and the philosophy of legisla- 
tion. Books of history, biography, and travel, engaged 
him ; but his thoughts occupied themselves most eagerly 
with speculative philosophy, metaphysical and moral, in 
the current literature of which he was well versed. It is 
interesting, in view of Theodore's passion for natural 
objects, to know that his taste also belonged to his father. 
He watched the heavens, and made himself acquainted 
with the movements of the stars. He was an observer of 
plants too, and flowers, and had laid up some store of 
information in natural history. It is needless to add, that 
this man was no hearty lover of poetry : he had too much 
understanding, and too little imagination. He read books 
of poetry, as he read any books he could lay hands on ; 
but the range of his reading throws doubt on his taste. 
One who can read, without strongly-declared preference, 
authors so various as Milton, Dryden, Shakspeare, Pope, 
Trumbull, and Abraham Cowley, cannot be credited with 
fondness for the poetic art. 

Mr. Parker had a strong mind. He thought for him- 
self, and passed judgment on authorities. Neither Paley 



BIRTHPLACE AND PARENTAGE. 7 

nor Edwards was to his liking, — Paley because " he left 
us no conscience : " Edwards probably for many reasons ; 
among others, perhaps, because he left us no will ; for will 
was a strong feature in the Parkers. He was an avowed 
Unitarian before Unitarianism as a system was preached, 
and a stout Federalist when there were but four besides 
himself in the whole town. Though averse to contro- 
versy, naturally silent and reserved, he had a gift of 
speech ; could argue forcibly and talk well on occasion, 
even with something like eloquence. His diligent study of 
the Bible made him formidable in theological debate. He 
had faith in mind ; took a practical interest in the town 
school ; was satisfied with none but good teachers ; and 
gave thought to the intellectual and moral training of his 
children. 

He was an upright man, — just, fearless, humane ; 
often called on to arbitrate in disputes, administer estates, 
and assume guardianship of orphans. He was a friend 
of peace, well-mannered and companionable, with a 
streak of humor that would occasionally break into mirth, 
but never passed the bounds of propriety. No profanity 
escaped his lips. His towns-people had a saying, " John 
Parker has all the manners of the neighborhood." 

The mother, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, was as 
remarkable in her way as the father was in his. Her 
maiden name was Hannah Stearns. Her son describes 
her as " a handsome woman, of slight form, flaxen hair, 
blue eyes, and a singularly fresh and delicate complexion ; 
more nervous than muscular." She had a family tendency 
to consumption, which increased the mildness and amiabil- 
ity of her disposition. Her education was inferior to her 
husband's, her mind less positive and independent. She 
lived more in her feeling and imagination, which kept their 
freshness amid the homely routine of domestic life, and 
through the cares belonging to a large family. Her tem- 
perament was poetical, though rather fanciful than imagina- 



8 THEODORE PARKER. 

tive. Her favorite reading was the Bible and Hymn-Book ; 
but ballad poetry gave her great delight, and her mind 
was stored with passages of beauty from English literature. 
She was fond of romantic stories of adventure among the 
Indians, some of which were printed in books, while many 
others floated about in the form of legend. A fine memory 
enabled her to repeat these wild tales, and to carry about 
with her such literary stores as she had. The duties of a 
large and exacting household — many children and no 
servants — afforded little leisure for mental cultivation ; but 
what she had was improved. Her husband's habit of read- 
ing aloud in the evening kept her supplied with food for 
thought. 

She was of a loving disposition towards those about her, 
tenderly watchful of her children, thoughtful of the aged, 
kind, and, as far as her means allowed, generous to the 
poor. Her rigid economy helped her in this. She was 
religious with the natural religion of the good heart. Her 
beliefs came to her through feeling rather than through 
reflection : they were not so much opinions as sentiments. 
She was ho theologian: the doctrines of the Calvinistic 
creed, which her strong-minded husband rejected as irra- 
tional, she rejected as monstrous, having no reasons to give 
for her aversion that were so cogent as the aversion itself. 
The heart was its own witness ; conscience was the oracle 
of God in the breast ; gratitude and trust were interpreters 
to her of the ways of Providence. With the simple feeling 
of a gentle spirit that comprehends more than it appre- 
hends, and clings where definition is impossible, she knew 
the Deity as an omnipresent Father, the joyous and lov- 
ing Soul of all things, animating nature and enlightening 
mind, filling the world with tides of energy that were as 
vast as the ocean, and bright as the rivulets. She, too, 
seems to have been silent ; a woman of few words, either of 
conversation or devotion : her prayers were secret. In the 
moral culture of her children she took great interest, which 



BIRTHPLACE AND PARENTAGE. 9 

she expressed, not in doctrinal teaching or incessant precept, 
but in wise counsel and sympathy as occasion came up. 

This information respecting his parents comes from 
Theodore himself, — an affectionate, grateful, and revering 
son, who loved to speak of his parents; scarcely ever failed 
to record in his busy journal the anniversaries of their 
birth or death, and never made such record without drop- 
ping the tenderest words on their memories. If it be 
objected that filial love glorified the parental qualities, it 
must be granted that filial love is the best interpreter of 
them. Affection transfigures, it is true ; but then affection 
understands. We cannot trust the insight of love when it is 
passionate ; but we can rely on its judgment when it is calm, 
like that of a noble man on those who gave him birth. 

From this slight sketch it is plain that the roots of The- 
odore Parker reached down deep, and spread out wide. 
Their fibres coiled round sturdy qualities ; their suckers 
found out hidden fountains of water. The stock was vig- 
orous, and could be counted on to produce, under favora- 
ble conditions, a style of character at once robust and 
beautiful, rich in some of the strongest, and attractive in 
some of the sweetest, elements of mind and heart. What- 
ever else the Parkers may have had or been defective in, 
they had force of will, strength of understanding, power 
of moral purpose, steadfastness, and independence. Some 
had humor, some remarkable intellectual thirst, one at least 
a curious knowledge of Eastern tongues : all had cour- 
age and endurance. The combination of qualities in this 
father and mother — the one so serious, intelligent, helpful, 
toilsome, sincere ; the other so tender, earnest, trustful, and 
deep-hearted — contained a prophecy of rare ability and 
worth. The fruit from such a tree ought to be rich. These 
prophecies do not always come to fulfilment. How far 
they did in this case will be seen as the story goes on. 



CHAPTER II. 



HOME AND BOYHOOD. 



Theodore Parker was born on the 24th of August, 
18 10. He was the youngest of eleven children, — the 
tenth being five years older than he. One died in infancy : 
the rest, none of them distinguished, lived to be useful 
men and women. All but three had a decided fondness for 
literature, read the best books they could get, and copied 
the portions that most interested them. The oldest had 
gone away from home when the last was born ; but enough 
remained to fill the house. John Parker was poor when 
he married, and he never became rich. " When he married 
Hannah Stearns," says Theodore in a fragment of auto- 
biography, " he went back to the original homestead to take 
care of his mother, while he should support his hand- 
some young wife and such family as might happen. It 
was the day of small things : he wore home-made blue-yarn 
stockings at his wedding, and brought his wife home over 
the rough winding roads, riding in the saddle his tall gray 
horse, with her upon a pillion. The outfit of furniture did 
not bespeak more sumptuous carriage : the common plates 
were of wood ; the pitcher, mugs, teacups and saucers, were 
of coarse earthenware ; while the great carving dishes 
were of thick, well-kept pewter. The holiday service ' for 
company ' was of the same material. Yet a few costly 
wine-glasses were not wanting, with two long-necked de- 
canters, a few china teacups and saucers of the minutest 



HOME AND BOYHOOD. n 



pattern, and — the pride of the buffet — a large china bowl. 
Besides, the young bride could show patchwork bedquilts 
and counterpanes, and a pretty store of linen towels, and 
a tablecloth of the same, white as the snow, and spun, 
wove, and bleached by her own laborious hands ; and her 
father raised the flax, which her brother pulled and rotted, 
and broke and swingled, and hackled and combed. Han- 
nah made their work into linen." 

" In my earliest childhood," the autobiography goes on 
to say, " the family at home consisted of my father's mother, 
more than eighty at my birth, — a tall, stately, proud-looking 
woman. She occupied an upper chamber, but came down 
stairs to dinner, — other meals she took in her own room, — 
and sate at the head of the table, on the woman's side 
thereof, opposite my father, who kept up the Puritan respect 
for age, — always granting it precedence. She busied 
herself chiefly in knitting and puttering about the room ; 
but passed the Sundays in reading the large Oxford quarto 
Bible of her husband, bought for the price of more than 
one load of hay delivered up at Boston. She had also the 
original edition of the Puritan Hymn-Book printed at Cam- 
bridge, which was much in her hands. She read the news- 
papers, — the ' Columbian Centinel,' which then appeared 
twice a week ; but common mundane literature she seldom 
touched. It was a part of my childish business to carry the 
drink to my venerable grandmother twice a day, — at eleven, 
a.m., and four, p.m. : this was flip in cool weather, and in 
spring and summer was toddy or punch : the latter was, 
however, more commonly reserved for festive occasions. 

" The neighbors about us were farmers : a shoemaker 
lived a mile off on one side, and a blacksmith within two 
miles on the other. These were generally, perhaps uni- 
versally, honest, hard-working men. They went to meeting 
Sundays, morning and afternoon. ' Their talk was of bul- 
locks, and they were diligent to give the kine fodder.' In 
their houses, generally neat as good housewifery could 



12 THEODORE PARKER. 

make them, you would find the children's school-books ; 
commonly a ' singing-book ' (' Billings's Collection,' or some 
other) ; perhaps a hymn-book ; and always a good quarto 
Bible, kept in the best room ; sometimes another Bible, in- 
herited from some Puritan ancestor : these, with an almanac 
hung in the corner of the kitchen-chimney, made up the 
family library. Perhaps a weekly or semi-weekly news- 
paper was also taken, and diligently read. Two families, 
not far off, were exceptions to this poverty of books : I 
now think of no more. Yet now and then the life of 
some great thief like Stephen Burroughs, or some pirate or 
highwayman, would show itself. In other parts of Lexing- 
ton, — ' on the great road,' or ' in the middle of the town,' 
— perhaps there was a better show of books. I only 
speak of my immediate neighborhood." 

The family, as has been stated, were poor. Their means 
were very slender. The land was small and unproductive, 
the tillage necessarily inexpensive. The soil was running 
out. The products were corn and potatoes, beans, vege- 
tables, and apples. The most valuable crop was peaches : 
sometimes as much as a hundred dollars' worth were sold. 
The meat was bought, and not seldom the vegetables. 
The chief income was derived from the shop ; but that was 
not much: a rigid economy was required to meet the 
daily needs. Mr. Parker had become surety for a brother 
who failed, and his portion of the farm was sold to pay 
the debt. The family expenses were increased by sick- 
ness. The taint of hereditary disease was aggravated by 
the unwholesomeness of the situation ; and it was rare 
that one or more of the household did not require medical 
treatment. This reduced the means of living to a very 
scanty sum, and left no margin for the commonest luxu- 
ries. Theodore had, as a child, a dangerous attack of 
typhoid-fever which threatened his life, and at another 
time a severe dysentery ; but his boyhood was generally 
healthy. The household could not afford to harbor un- 



HOME AND BOYHOOD. 13 

productive consumers : all the able-bodied members were 
drafted for toil. When scarcely more than a child, Theo- 
dore, with a companion hardly, it would seem, more com- 
petent than he, was sent to Boston market with the peach 
crop ; and, long before his strength was adequate to such 
tasks, he was employed in the laying of a stone wall, the 
strain of which, he used to say afterwards, was a perma- 
nent injury to his constitution. The skill acquired in the 
use of tools, and implements of husbandry, was no com- 
pensation for this excessive labor ; nor was the physical 
strength obtained any suitable reward for the unnatural 
exertions by which it was won. The out-door life was 
good ; but the conditions of it were bad. The causes of 
much of the ill health that darkened and depressed the 
years of manhood may be traced to these laborious days of 
childhood, to which so many have ascribed the apparent 
strength of his constitution. 

But to return to the autobiography and the childhood. 
" As the youngest child, it may be supposed I was treated 
with uncommon indulgence, and probably received a good 
deal more than a tenth part of the affection distributed. 
I remember often to have heard the neighbors say, 'Why, 
Mis' Parker, you're sp'ilin' your boy ! He never can take 
care of himself when he grows up.' To which she re- 
plied, she hoped not, and kissed my flaxen curls anew. 

" Among the earliest things I remember is the longing I 
used to feel to have the winter gone, and to see the great 
snow-bank — sometimes, when new-fallen, as high as the 
top of the kitchen-window — melt away in front of the 
house. I loved, though, to run in the snow barefoot, and 
with only my night-shirt on, for a few minutes at a time. 
When the snow was gone, the peculiar smell of the ground 
seemed to me delicious. The first warm days of spring, 
which brought the blue-birds to their northern home, and 
tempted the bees to try short flights, in which they presently 
dropped on the straw my provident father had strewn for 



14 THEODORE PARKER. 

them about their hive, filled me with the deepest delight. 
In the winter I was limited to the kitchen, where I could 
build cob-houses, or form little bits of wood into fantastic 
shapes. Sometimes my father or one of my brothers 
would take me to the shop, where he pursued his toilsome 
work ; or to the barn, where the horse, the oxen, and the 
cows were a perpetual pleasure. But when .the snow was 
gone, and the ground dry, I had free range. I used to sit 
or lie on the ground in a dry and sheltered spot, and 
watch the great yellow clouds of April that rolled their 
huge shapes far above my head, filling my eye with their 
strange, fantastic, beautiful, and ever-changing forms, and 
my mind with wonder at what they were, and how they 
came there. 

" But the winter itself was not without its in-door pleas- 
ures, even for a little fellow in brown homespun petticoats. 
The uncles and aunts came in their sleighs full of cousins, 
some of whom were of my own age, to pass a long after- 
noon and evening, not without abundant good cheer, and 
a fire in ' the other room,' as the humble parlor was mod- 
estly named. They did not come without a great apple, 
or a little bag of shag-barks, or some other tid-bit, for 
' Mis' Parker's baby ; ' for so the youngest was called long 
after he ceased to merit the name. Nay, father and mother 
often returned these visits, and sometimes took the baby 
with them ; because the mother did not like to leave the 
darling at home ; or perhaps she wished to show how stout 
and strong her eleventh child had come into the world." 

The child did not increase in beauty as he increased in 
years. They who remember him in his young days de- 
scribe him as rather under the usual size, clumsily made, 
ungainly and inactive, but as arch and roguish in dis- 
position. The bashfulness, and sense of awkwardness, he 
probably recovered from ; but the ungainliness of move- 
ment remained with him always. 

The thirst for knowledge appeared in him early; but nei- 



HOME AND BOYHOOD. 15 

ther so early nor so surprisingly as his consciousness of 
right and wrong. Two or three interesting examples of 
this he recalls from his childhood : " In my fourth year, 
my father had a neighbor, Deacon Stearns, come to kill a 
calf. My father would not do it himself, as other farmers 
did. I was not allowed to see the butchery ; but, after it 
was all over, the deacon, who had lost all his children, 
asked me whom I loved best. 'Papa.' — 'What! better 
than yourself?' — 'Yes, sir.' — 'But,' said my father, 'if 
one of us must take a whipping, which would you rather 
should have the blows ? ' I said nothing, but wondered 
and wondered why I should prefer that he should have the 
blows, and not I. The fact was plain, and plainly selfish, 
and, it seemed to me, wicked. Yet I could not help the 
feeling. It tormented me for weeks in my long clothes." 
Another instance must not be omitted, though it has been 
often quoted for its striking beauty : it is told at the close 
of the "Autobiography." "When a little boy in petti- 
coats, in my fourth year, one fine day in spring my father 
led me by the hand to a distant part of the farm, but soon 
sent me home alone. On the way I had to pass a little 
' pond-hole,' then spreading its waters wide. A rhodora in 
full bloom — a rare plant in my neighborhood, and which 
grew only in that locality — attracted my attention, and 
drew me to the spot. I saw a little spotted tortoise sunning 
himself in the shallow water at the root of the flaming 
shrub. I lifted the stick I had in my hand to strike the 
harmless reptile : for, though I had never killed any crea- 
ture, yet I had seen other boys out of sport destroy birds, 
squirrels, and the like ; and I felt a disposition to follow 
their wicked example. But all at once something checked 
my little arm, and a voice within me said clear and loud, 
' It is wrong.' I held my uplifted stick in wonder at the 
new emotion — the consciousness of an involuntary but in- 
ward check upon my actions — till the tortoise and the 
rhodora both vanished from my sight. I hastened home, 



1 6 THEODORE PARKER. 

told the tale to my mother, and asked what it was that 
told me it was wrong. She wiped a tear from her eye 
with her apron, and, taking me in her arms, said, ' Some 
men call it conscience ; but I prefer to call it the voice of 
God in the soul of man. If you listen and obey it, then 
it will speak clearer and clearer, and always guide you 
right ; but if you turn a deaf ear, or disobey, then it will 
fade out little by little, and leave you all in the dark and 
without a guide. Your life depends on your heeding this 
little voice.' She went her way, careful and troubled 
about many things, but doubtless pondered them in her 
motherly heart ; while I went off to wonder and to think 
it over in my poor childish way. But I am sure no event 
in my life has made so deep and lasting an impression on 
me." The grateful man tells this story to show " the nice 
and delicate care she took of my moral culture." But it 
shows with equal clearness the child's moral sensibility, 
not rare, we may hope, at that tender age, but certainly rare 
associated with so much thoughtfulness, curiosity, and sin- 
cerity. Not that the feeling came, but that it became reflec- 
tion, and deepened into character, is the remarkable thing. 
The religious sentiment was as quick in germinating 
as the moral, and had the same conditions in its favor. 
The father was a religious man of the grave, earnest sort, 
without much emotion. He went to church, taught his chil- 
dren the Ten Commandments, encouraged their learning 
hymns, and would have them say their prayers when they 
went to bed : but he read the Bible with his understanding ; 
omitted, toward the close of his life, the grace before 
meat ; and in his old age, when too deaf to hear the preach- 
er's sermon, staid at home and read novels. The mother 
had a sweet, fresh, instinctive devoutness. She belonged 
to "the church," and had the children duly christened in 
presence' of the neighbors. Theodore's turn came when 
he was about two years and a half old, he being the last 
and the pet child. The occasion was made impressive by 



HOME AND BOYHOOD. 17 

a larger concourse of friends than usual. The ceremony 
was by sprinkling or touching the forehead with water. 
The child prefigured the man, not by the idle wail so com- 
mon at these rituals, but by an outspoken protest, grounded 
in apprehension, possibly, rather than in reason, but suffi- 
ciently emphatic to be remembered. A child of two years 
and a half could hardly have speculated about the ceremony 
he was undergoing, or intelligently wanted to know what 
it all meant, or for what purpose it was done : but the " Oh, 
don't ! " was something more than a cry of fear ; there was 
character in it ; it revealed the spirit that afterwards made 
the man protest against so many things, on the ground 
that they did not stand in reason. 

But if the sharp, challenging disposition was thus for-, 
ward, the devout tendency was in no way behind. " Reli- 
gion," he said in a sermon quoted by Mr. Weiss, " was the 
inheritance my mother gave me in my birth, — gave me in 
her teachings. Many sons have been better born than I : 
few have had so good a mother. I mention these things 
to show you how I came to have the views of religion that 
I have now. My head is not more natural to my body, 
has not more grown with it, than my religion out of my soul 
and with it. With me religion was not carpentry, something 
built up of dry wood from without ; but it was growth, — 
growth of a germ in my soul." 

At an age when most children are amusing themselves 
with their first fairy tales, he was capable of "spirit- 
ual experiences." He was not seven years old when the 
doctrine of everlasting damnation plunged his soul in 
anguish, which made the hours of one night, if no more, 
so wretched, that for years he could hardly think of the 
horror without shuddering. But such passages were not 
frequent, nor did they last long. There is no evidence of 
morbid tendency at this time ; none of severe inward con- 
flict. His nature, if sensitive, was buoyant, and soon sur- 
mounted the mental difficulties that came in his way. The 



18 THEODORE PARKER. 

inherited predisposition to consumption may occasionally 
have caused a lassitude of feeling \ the hardness of his 
lot may a little further have depressed his animal spirits : 
but his mind was not self-tormenting. Whenever the man 
recalled his childhood, the recollection was pleasant. 
" However it may be with the natural man," he used to say, 
"the natural boy has no fear of God." "I have swam 
in clear, sweet waters all my days," he told the Progressive 
Friends. " From the days of earliest boyhood, when I 
went stumbling through the grass ' as merry as a May bee,' 
up to the gray-bearded manhood of this time, there is none 
but has left me honey in the hive of memory, that I now 
feed on for present delight. When I recall the years of 
boyhood, youth, early manhood, I am filled with a sense 
of sweetness and wonder that such little things can make 
a mortal so exceedingly rich." Mr. Parker's hilarious 
humor was of a spontaneous and racy flavor, that could 
hardly consist with a morbid temperament ; and this humor 
displayed itself in his earliest years. The elements of 
his being were healthy ; the struggles were incidental, and 
served to make the healthfulness robust. A great capa- 
city for sorrow does not imply an ever-present fact of sor- 
row. That the capacity was there will be plain enough as 
the career flows on ; that the fact was present too, and often, 
admits of no doubt : but no melancholy cast prevented the 
natural wholesomeness. from vindicating itself, and com- 
ing out easily victorious over foes that held no ground in 
the citadel, but only stormed the outer walls. 

The school-days began early, when the boy was barely 
six years old. The plain district schoolhouse was a mile 
distant by the road, but was brought nearer by a short cut 
across the fields and over the brook. It was kept by one 
teacher at a time, in summer and in winter: twelve or four- 
teen weeks in winter, from December ; four months, or six- 
teen weeks, from the middle of May to the middle of Sep- 
tember, in spring and summer. In seed-time and harvest the 



HOME AND BOYHOOD. 19 

children could not be spared ; nor could money be spared to 
maintain a teacher the full year. The summer school was 
kept for the smaller children, whose services were not re- 
quired on the farm. Theodore attended only in winter from 
his seventh or eighth year. The summer teacher was com- 
monly a woman. Mary Smith, or " Aunt Pattie " as she was 
called, was the first who had charge of our young friend's in- 
struction. The male teacher whose name is first mentioned 
was John Hastings. He is not highly praised, either as schol- 
ar, teacher, or disciplinarian, by one of Mr. Parker's contem- 
poraries ; nor had he any vivid recollections, in after-life, of 
his distinguished pupil. But Theodore remembered him ; 
and one evening in Brooklyn, after a lecture, the old teacher 
was heartily greeted by the speaker whom he had been 
listening to for the first time, and was wittily reminded of 
an incident in their school-relations which had quite escaped 
his memory. Hastings tells the story, adding that it was 
enjoyed by a good many loiterers besides himself. The 
rage among the boys, it seems, was for pop-guns, — an instru- 
ment made usually of a quill, and loaded with a piece of 
potato : the pushing in of a rammer at the larger end of 
the tube compressed the air, and the potato came out at 
the small end with a report loud enough to startle a large 
room. It was a harmless weapon, the bite whereof was in the 
bark. Theodore procured from his elder brother a pop-gun 
of uncommon caliber, and carried it to school. The weap- 
on being new and untried, the hush of the school-room 
tempting, and the master's back suggestive of opportunity, 
the experiment on sound was then and there hazarded. In 
an instant, all heads were raised ; the master faced about 
with inquisitive eyes : but at that instant no boy was study- 
ing so hard as Parker ; he was devouring his book ! The 
success of the first experiment inspired a second : but this 
time the master looked up a second too soon • the culprit 
was detected in the very act. There was a challenge, a 
summons, a reprimand ; the weapon was confiscated, and 
order was restored. 



20 THEODORE PARKER. 

The New-England district schools were not graded : the 
scholars were of all ages, from five to twenty. The teach- 
ers were young men from some neighboring college, who 
eked out their expenses by teaching in vacations, and for 
as much longer as the authorities permitted, or their neces- 
sities required. The instruction was never systematic, and 
almost always thin. The amount accomplished depended, 
in greatest measure, on the capacity and interest of the 
instructor : and neither was apt to be great ; for the work 
was undertaken by raw minds half furnished, and was 
done incidentally, as a make-shiftj by young men who had 
no thought of making teaching their profession. The com- 
pensation was small, — twenty-eight dollars a month, the 
teacher boarding himself. Little besides the elements 
was attempted. No regular instruction was given in the 
arts of composition or declamation. The books in use 
were Murray's English Grammar, Adams's Arithmetic, 
Whelpley's Compend of History; for advanced classes, 
Blake's Philosophy, Comstock's Chemistry, Colburn's 
Algebra, Playfair's Euclid, Blair's Rhetoric. 

In 1820, William Hoar White, afterwards a Unitarian 
minister, then a student in Brown University, twenty-five 
years old, succeeded Mr. Hastings, and produced a bene- 
ficial change in the school. Theodore was then old 
enough to interest him ; and he never ceased to be grate- 
ful to the firm, kind, sympathetic friend who led him on 
past the prescribed line of study, and started him in Latin 
and Greek. White taught two winters. Theodore felt 
his loss severely ; but it was made good by his successor, 
George Fiske, also a student of Brown University, who 
taught three winters. Both these young men were pro- 
cured by Mr. Parker, who was acquainted with relatives 
of theirs in Lexington. To these two men the volume on 
"Theism and Atheism" was dedicated in 1853, "with 
gratitude for early instruction received at their hands." 
Mr. Fiske brought some books from the college library 
that made him doubly welcome to the juvenile student. 



HOME AND BOYHOOD. 21 

This desultory kind of teaching went on ten years for 
about three months each winter, and two summer terms, — 
equivalent to something like three years of continuous 
instruction; though not as effective, by any means, as 
three years of continuous instruction would have been. 
At the age of sixteen he went for a single quarter to Mr. 
Huntington's school, called the " Academy," at Lexington. 
This costly indulgence — the expense, we are informed by 
the letter of a friend, was four dollars — was afforded by 
the lad's self-denial in foregoing the accomplishment of 
dancing, which the boys and girls of his age were culti- 
vating, in view of social festivities that were the ruling 
passion about that time. Between the culture of the two 
extremities, Theodore, on consideration, chose that of the 
head. At the Academy he pushed his studies into algebra, 
and extended his acquaintance with Latin and Greek. At 
the age of seventeen he began to teach himself. 

When he was a little boy, an incident occurred that 
made a deep impression on him. He was on his way to 
school, trudging alone across the fields. Suddenly he was 
accompanied by an old man with long white beard and a 
patriarchal aspect, who talked with him on the way, told 
him what a bright boy might do and be, making his heart 
burn with strong emotion, and then disappeared as unac- 
countably as he came. Theodore often alluded to this 
adventure in after-life in a manner that betrayed a half- 
superstitious belief in the visitation. Who the person was, 
he could not guess : no inhabitant of the neighborhood ; 
he knew them all. No stranger had been seen in the quiet 
village. Be he who he might be, the meeting fell in with 
the boy's early consciousness that he had a destiny. Was 
it the consciousness that made the meeting significant ? 

The boy was distinguished as a scholar by his thirst for 
knowledge and his memory. Both were remarkable. He 
read miscellaneously and every thing. He was always 
studying, in school and out. Mr. White set evening les- 



22 THEODORE PARKER. 

sons : Theodore learned them, and wanted more. He 
had extra studies, and was not satisfied. In the sum- 
mer noons, when the other hands indulged in a siesta 
under the trees, he refreshed his mind with books. The 
winter mornings were too short, and domestic duties left 
him no leisure ; but the winter evenings and the summer 
mornings were long, and the hours were faithfully used. 
No boy in the school could match him either in quantity 
or quality of performance. But one pupil approached 
him ; and that one was a girl, Marianne Smith by name. 
The extent of his reading was astonishing. Whatever 
Mr. Fiske could lend, whatever the social library would 
afford, he devoured. The father brought home nothing 
that the boy did not appropriate. If the cautious parent 
put a volume away on a high shelf, judging it for some 
reason unfit for youthful eyes, the eyes espied it, and the 
hands reached it the instant the workshop absorbed the 
parental form. Every thing was fish that came into his 
net. Before he was eight he had read Homer and Plutarch 
(in translations of course), Rollin's Ancient History, — a 
common book, — and all the other volumes of history and 
poetry that circumstances afforded. Books of travel and 
adventure were welcomed, and assimilated too ; for his 
parents made him give an account of every volume he 
read before he could have another. At the Academy he 
went through Colburn's Algebra in three weeks. Nor 
were his studies confined to books. The stars interested 
him ; the trees, the shrubs, the flowers of the neighbor- 
hood, the plants in cultivated gardens he visited, the 
foreign fruits he saw in the Boston market, the husks and 
leaves that came wrapped about bales of merchandise, 
tea-chests, and packages from distant parts of the world, 
attracted his attention. The formation of the hills, their 
direction and slope ; the minerals, rocks, stones that lay 
about, or that were brought from a distance, — excited 
his curiosity. The means of satisfying it were few. A 



HOME AND BOYHOOD. 23 

copy of Evelyn's " Sylva," and Morse's large Geography, 
did not go very far ; but they told something, and a perse- 
vering sagacity did what was done beside. His memory 
— an inheritance from his mother, which he treasured and 
kept bright by diligent care — held fast whatever the 
rapacious mind received. He had his mother's aptitude 
for committing verses ; could repeat a song from hearing 
it once, the Sunday hymn while the minister read it. He 
could carry several hundred lines in his memory, so as to 
recite them at a sitting. In mature years, when his mind 
was burdened with stores, he could appropriate as many 
as a hundred and fifty lines of blank-verse after a single 
reading. It was his custom, when walking with a com- 
panion, to recite from poems like Wordsworth's " Excur- 
sion " till his friend begged for mercy. He had the 
political events of the country at his tongue's end while 
yet a schoolboy ; and talked so intelligently about them, 
that the political gossips of the town, assembled in Dud- 
ley's Tavern, drew him out for the sake of hearing his 
opinion. The gift of expression came to him as readily 
as the gift of acquisition. The disease of verse-making 
attacked him when he was eight years old. His first com- 
position on the " starry heavens " disappointed his teacher, 
Mr. Fiske, by being too short. He was an impassioned 
declaimer ; spoke with much applause, at a public exhibi- 
tion, a piece from Scott's " Marmion ; " and showed the 
power of mimicry that afterwards made him so amusing 
and so formidable by impersonating a Catholic priest in 
some juvenile theatricals. 1 

Such lads are commonly more popular with their teach- 
ers than with their comrades. This was hardly the case 
with Theodore. His kindness, and love of fun, disarmed 
the jealousy his superiority might have excited, and over- 
came the awe his gravity would naturally inspire. It cost 
him no effort to be sportive. In play-time he could play 
with the most frolicsome, after a hearty, robustious man- 



24 THEODORE PARKER. 

ner that was a little too much for some of his companions. 
He was never graceful, — never, in fact, any thing but 
uncouth ; but he was never tyrannical. He loved fair play : 
the bullies found him a formidable opponent. We do not 
hear that he had intimates ; there was too much of him for 
that : but we do not hear that he had enemies. If he was 
conscious, as he must have been, of remarkable force of 
character, he did not make others cruelly sensible of it. In 
the last year of school he was much respected, and had great 
influence among the boys. They came to him for explana- 
tions of difficult points, and referred their disputes to him. 

The testimonies to his moral character are all of one 
tenor. He was modest, pure, single-minded, frank, and 
true. If Theodore Parker said a thing, it was believed by 
young and by old. A quick, eager temper would have led 
him astray into acts of violence, if he did not have it 
under habitual control : but it could not have betrayed 
him into vicious indulgence ; for there was no taint of 
sensuality in him. His thoughts were busy with literature ; 
his appetite was for knowledge : his warmth of feeling 
came to re-enforce the steadfastness of his conscience, not 
to weaken it. He was open and unselfish. The bent of 
his nature was towards nobleness. In the humbler virtues 
of toil and economy his whole life was a school. He 
wanted more books than his father could give him ; and 
to work for them was the only way to obtain them. His 
father supplied him with his first Latin grammar : the Latin 
dictionary he paid for with the proceeds of a whortleberry 
excursion when he was twelve years old. The well-worn 
volume had its place in the noble library in Boston, which, 
but for the purpose displayed on that whortleberry expe- 
dition, would have had no existence. It was a humble 
tome ; but it was the corner-stone of the structure. 

His career of teaching began at seventeen. The first 
winter, that of 1827, he took charge of the district school 
in Quincy , the second, in North Lexington ; the third, in 



HOME AND BOYHOOD. 25 

Concord \ and the fourth, in Waltham. Farmers spared 
their boys in the winter, reckoning that their labor was 
about equivalent to their board ; but in summer, if they 
went away from home while under age, they must pay the 
wages of a substitute. This he did. When he left home 
finally, two years before his majority, he hired a cousin to 
do his work. During the two years previous he worked 
himself like a field-hand on the farm, digging, ploughing, 
haying, laying stone-wall, helping his broad-shouldered 
father in his shop, mending wheels, repairing wagons, 
making pumps, doing miscellaneous jobs in wood-work, 
with as much conscience as he studied, if with less 
joy. He worked as if toil was his whole occupation \ he 
studied as if study was his whole delight. The book was 
always near to fill up the crevices of time. There were 
precious moments in the morning. If the evening was 
occupied, he extorted an hour or two from the night. 
Rainy days were godsends. 

At seventeen, militia duties began ; and in these he was 
as active, prompt, and efficient as in all the rest. There 
was always a touch of the warlike spirit in him. The two 
guns in his Exeter-place library were no vain symbols. 
The military reputation of the ancestor who was at Lex- 
ington Common, and chafed under inaction at Bunker 
Hill, was dear to his heart. Life was a warfare, the out- 
ward symbols whereof were as significant as they were to 
the apostle, who charged his followers to put on the 
breastplate of righteousness, and to take the sword of 
the Spirit. He rose to rank in the company : clerk he 
certainly was, perhaps lieutenant : whether he rose to 
higher authority is less certain. 

With all this, Theodore added much to the social life of 
the household. His talk was copious and entertaining, 
his jokes telling, his fun exuberant. His affectionate- 
ness ran over to the domestic animals : he had names for 
the cows ; he made the cattle hold imaginary conversations 
3 



26 THEODORE PARKER. 

together; rendered the habits of the dumb creatures into 
parables, thus adopting them into the life of the home. 

Of his early teaching little record is preserved. That 
he worked hard at his calling need not be said. Every 
spare hour that could be snatched from the day was de- 
voted to his own studies. At Waltham a young woman 
wished to learn French. He knew nothing of the lan- 
guage, but, obtaining the necessary elemental books, 
soon mastered the rudiments, and became learner and 
teacher at once. In North Lexington his monthly salary 
was twenty-five dollars, out of which he paid his substitute 
at the farm, met his board-bill, and provided himself with 
clothing (it did not cost much) : the rest went for books, 
which he bought at second-hand prices. There was in 
Waltham an impression, that, as a teacher, he was unrea- 
sonably exacting in his requirements, and absolute in his 
discipline. It is quite possible : his faith in human capa- 
city was always large ; his anticipations were always san- 
guine. What he demanded of himself he expected from 
others, and drew out if he could. Schoolboys are seldom 
grateful to the master who sets long lessons, and insists on 
correct recitals : even school committees are willing to 
pass over defects that promote a pleasant state of feeling 
among the boys and girls. 

One summer day, in August, 1830, — the day before his 
birthday, — he went away, telling no one whither he was 
going. His father had given him leave of absence from 
morning till night. He walked to Cambridge, was exam- 
ined, passed examination, walked home, and told his 
father, lying in his bed, that he had entered Harvard Col- 
lege. If the old man wondered in the morning where his 
son was going, he wondered more at night on learning 
where he had been. " But, Theodore, I cannot afford it." 
— " Father, it shall cost you nothing. I will stay at 
home, and keep up with my class." And this he did for a 
year, working on the farm as usual, pushing on his studies 



HOME AND BOYHOOD. 27 

perseveringly, and only going to Cambridge to be exam- 
ined. The course at Harvard was not, fifty years ago, 
what it is now ; and Parker found no difficulty in distan- 
cing his class in the appointed curriculum, besides doing a 
vast deal of miscellaneous reading in general literature. 
Being a non-resident, and his own tutor, he paid no tui- 
tion-fees, and was not entitled to a degree. Four years 
later, he might have had one by paying the arrears of 
tuition ; but that was beyond his means. He was not 
enrolled among the regular Harvard graduates until 
1840, when the degree of A.M. was conferred upon him, 
as a mark of honor, at the instance of men who thought 
it a shame that so distinguished a mind should be unrec- 
ognized. The point required urging ; for the quality of 
the mind was not altogether such as Cambridge approved ; 
and some were unwilling that so pronounced a rationalist 
as he was coming to be thought should be an acknowl- 
edged son of Harvard College. 

That day in August was never forgotten. The recur- 
rence of its anniversary is found frequently recorded in 
the journal, always in tender, grateful words, accompa- 
nied with expressions of thanksgiving and prayer. Five 
months before he reached the year of manhood he went 
away from his father's house, his own guide and master, — 
left it, as in primitive times sailors took leave when start- 
ing on a long voyage. The home grew dearer to him 
every year, — dearc while its inmates lived, dearer still 
when they lived no more. His heart was always there, 
his mind often, his presence less and less frequently. 
He could always revert to it with satisfaction : its lessons 
he had not to unlearn ; its influences he had not to over- 
come. The memory of father and mother was inexpres- 
sibly dear to the last. In his days of ambition and 
fame, he confessed to himself, and made no secret to any- 
body, that the best in him was due to those who gave 
him birth, and to the hardship in which he was nurtured. 



CHAPTER III. 



TEACHING AND STUDY. 



On the 23d of March, 183 1, Theodore Parker went to 
Boston, as an assistant teacher in a private school, at a 
salary of twelve dollars a month and board : it was after- 
wards raised to fifteen dollars, and the increase dated 
back to the beginning of his service. His worldly goods 
were contained in a great wooden trunk covered with 
painted cloth. Eleven octavo volumes and a few twelve- 
mos constituted his library. He was set to teach more 
than he knew ; but, as he never undertook to teach what 
he had not learned, he made up by toil what he lacked 
in resources. The toil was fearful. Mathematics, natural 
philosophy, Latin, French, Spanish, must be kept fresh, 
or learned newly, and — except with incidental aid from a 
professed teacher in mathematics, Mr. Francis Grund — 
by his own solitary efforts. Yet, even at this rate of en- 
forced speed, he distanced duty, adding another language 
(German) to his store of tongues, and perfecting his ac- 
quaintance with those he had. This winter he wrote his 
first lecture, on Poland, and read it in Lexington. The 
subject was one of great popular interest at the time, as 
much as that of Greece or Hungary afterwards. He 
studied ten or twelve hours a day, — the school required 
six ; from May to September, seven. It was too much : 
he lost twenty-eight pounds of flesh in three months. 
He had never learned the art of husbanding his health : 
28 



TEACHING AND STUDY. 29 

no friend warned him against the consequences of close 
confinement, insufficient food, broken sleep, excessive 
strain of faculty ; and even his great strength felt the ex- 
haustion. Signs of weakness and despondency appeared 
thus early : he was laying the basis for the chronic ill 
health that was such a drag on his after-life. He knew it 
when too late, and tried by resolute efforts to recover the 
lost ground ; made rules for himself, and did his best to 
observe them : but the mistake, once committed, could 
not be repaired ; nor could the habits, once contracted and 
becoming inveterate, ever be wholly abandoned. 

He needed air and exercise ; but he needed society 
even more. His disposition was genial : he loved people, 
he craved friendship, and' had not even acquaintances. 
Recreation he could not afford had he desired it. Noth- 
ing broke the monotony of his brain-work, which went on 
with such pitiless power, that faint and incidental symp- 
toms of paralysis showed themselves from time to time 
in sensations of numbness and pricking, the purport 
whereof he did not understand. Even religion, his 
never-failing supporter, came to him at this period in 
its least attractive shape. He must needs make a study, 
and not a refreshment, of that too. He chose that time 
of all times for attending the pulpit ministrations of 
the famous Lyman Beecher, then in the height of his 
popularity, — the most powerful and one of the most un- 
compromising preachers of orthodoxy in New England, 
then in the full tide of popularity, battling fiercely against 
" Unitarians, Universalists, Papists, and infidels." He had 
come to Boston to crush Dr. Channing and the new here- 
sies. Parker went through one of his protracted meet- 
ings, "listening to the fiery words of excited men, and 
hearing the most frightful doctrines set forth in sermon, 
song, and prayer." The result of it was, that he lost all 
the little respect he had for the Calvinistic scheme of 
theology, — a result, we surmise, that was worth far less 
3* 



30 THEODORE PARKER. 

than it cost, and was no compensation for the delight and 
strength the new dispensation would have given him. 
There was no danger of his respecting the Calvinistic 
theology too much, and there was danger of despondency 
in his own heart. 

If he could have laid by money for his future plans, 
which began to embrace a course at the Cambridge Di- 
vinity School, it would have been a consolation. But 
from a salary of fifteen dollars a month, during the first 
five months of which he supplied a man to work in his 
place on his father's farm, — his father demurred, but 
Theodore insisted, — not many dollars could be saved by 
the severest economy ; and his vision of systematic prepa- 
ration for the ministry, as it faded away into more distant 
future, left an additional faintness in his spirit. 

Fortunately, his life in Boston lasted but a twelvemonth, 
till April, 1832. He went thence at once to Watertown, at 
the suggestion, probably, of relatives who lived there, and 
opened a private school. There the heavens began to 
brighten to him. 

The school was opened in the south part of the town, in 
a room that had been before used by a Mr. Wilder for a 
similar purpose. It was on the second floor of what once 
was a bakery. The part beneath was occupied as a store- 
house by Nathaniel Broad, who lived on the spot, and with 
whom the young teacher boarded. It was in every respect 
a comfortable, convenient, and pleasant place, at least 
after the handy tenant had spent some of his carpentry 
skill on it. He was his own attendant and porter. In 
winter he sawed, split, and brought up the wood for the 
stove, made the fire, and at all seasons put the room in 
order for the scholars. They came satisfactorily, on the 
whole. He began with the two sons of Mr. George Rob- 
bins. Others dropped in one by one, till the school in the 
first year numbered thirty-five. Subsequently it increased 
to fifty-four. The charge was not high, — five dollars a 



TEACHING AND STUDY. 31 

quarter \ but, rather than turn a deserving boy or girl away 
because the modest fee could not be paid, he would take 
the applicant gratis, and bestow as much care on the 
beneficiary as on the rest. To one girl he gave the value 
of his instructions for a year and a half, and then begged 
his successor to allow her to continue her studies with 
him. Social questions were not as clear to his mind 
as they were afterwards. A colored girl applied, and 
was admitted by the teacher without misgiving : he knew 
no distinction of persons ; but the parents of his other 
pupils did. They made objections, prophesying injury to 
the school ; and the black inmate was dismissed. It was 
not a generous thing to do : on the contrary, it was a 
shabby thing. The young man confessed it afterwards 
with mortification, and made ample amends to her perse- 
cuted race ; but it was pardonable in a youth who had lived 
in the seclusion of thoughts, whose conscience had never 
been touched by the wrongs of the negro North or South, 
and who regarded race merely as he would any other dis- 
turbing element. Had it occurred to him that a principle 
was involved in the transaction, he would have seen the 
school dwindle away to nothing sooner than have yielded. 
The boys gave him society : he made companions of them, 
shared their sports, invited their confidence, gained their 
affection, and used the influence he acquired to shape their 
characters for after-life. Five or six of them were fellow- 
lodgers with him at Mr. Broad's. With these he took par- 
ticular pains, correcting their habits, observing their 
manners, and seeming to feel a genuine concern for their 
moral welfare. The exercises of the school were opened 
with prayer ; grace was said before meat, in a simple and 
impressive way, no doubt • and the boys felt the contagion 
of a pure, reverent mind. 

He was a live teacher, with an insatiable hunger for 
knowledge himself, a keen appreciation of its value to every- 
body, a high sense of personal duty as an instructor of it, 



32 THEODORE PARKER. 

and a faith apparently boundless in the capacity of fresh 
young minds to take it in. The lads who came to him 
from public schools were at first dismayed at the studies he 
expected of them ; but he kindled the fire while he fed it 
with fuel, so gently persuading and skilfully stimulating 
the faculties, so clearly explaining and so dexterously lead- 
ing along, that the backward and reluctant followed at 
length. He had a way of making the scholars answer their 
own questions, and remove their own difficulties, such as 
only complete masters of their art possess. The text-book 
was never substituted for intellectual activity : it was mind 
to mind as much as possible. Manuals of natural theology 
he strongly objected to, on the ground that they forestalled 
inquiry, and raised doubts before the time. If he used 
such at all, he used them as provocatives of thought ; but he 
preferred discarding them. He had other ways of teaching 
natural theology, — by suggesting natural religion. This 
he did by casual comments and reflections, lessons drawn 
from the day's reading, appeals to feeling, or to the intui- 
tive perceptions of right and wrong. He made the trees, 
flowers, birds, and animals his texts as he rambled with the 
boys in the woods. The mind stored with information on 
natural objects overflowed with half -meditated, half-unpur- 
posed interpretations of the beauty and use of the world of 
little things, and illustrated by scores of pretty facts the 
ethics of boyish life. Religion was the first interest with 
him : he was unhappy if he could not make his schoolboys 
feel its power and charm. 

He insisted on order, but hated to enforce it. In one or 
two instances he was obliged to speak harshly in reproof ; 
but only in one or two. The discipline of the school was 
secured by rational kindness, which made the pupils happy 
in obedience. Backed by his weight of character, the rule 
of love, which is apt to degenerate into an ineffectual senti- 
mentalism, acquired a sweet stringency that was sufficient 
for ordinary purposes. His love was a power. 



TEACHING AND STUDY. 33 

The life in Watertown was more wholesome in many 
ways than the life in Boston. There was air and light, 
and the direct contact with Nature. In summer there were 
long afternoon and morning walks. Every Saturday he 
walked to Cambridge, and to Charlestown for instruction in 
Hebrew. The botanical researches were pursued. There 
was companionship too. Mr. and Mrs. Broad were plain 
people, but kindly: he was attached to them. On Mr. 
Broad's death, the young teacher found employment for 
heart and hand in the sendee he was able to render his 
widow in doors and out. As the labors of the school be- 
came less onerous, he had leisure and disposition for society. 
His cousins in Watertown were intelligent, sympathetic, 
friendly people. His uncle was a man of remarkable dig- 
nity and sweetness, of an easy breadth of mind that Theo- 
dore enjoyed heartily. Gradually their circle became his : 
good men and women welcomed him to their homes. Mr. 
Weiss, who has lived in Watertown himself, and can speak 
from knowledge, dwells tenderly on the names of eight or 
ten families, some of them of wealth and culture, where 
he was intimate, and where his intimacy is cherished in 
the form of affectionate memories and dearest discipleship. 
They are associates in thought with Mr. Parker still. The 
intimacy of two years continued for many, and was an edu- 
cation to him as well as to them. 

In Watertown Mr. Parker met two persons whose influ- 
ence was felt on his whole future. Rev. Charles Briggs of 
Lexington had given him a letter of introduction to Con- 
vers Francis, Unitarian minister to the First Parish ; and 
by its means he gained access to a noble library, a spacious 
and richly-furnished mind, and a heart warm to every lover 
of truth and friend of " the humanities." Mrs. Francis was 
kindness itself combined with elegance, and a passion for 
flowers which Theodore shared. Mr. Francis was one of 
those rare men whom too few appreciate : a liberal scholar 
in the best sense of the phrase ; learned without pedantry ; 



34 THEODORE PARKER. 

open to the light from every quarter ; an enormous reader 
of books ; a great student of German philosophy and divin- 
ity, as very few at that time were. The newest criticisms 
and speculations were on his table and in his mind. He 
was absolutely free from dogmatism, — the dogmatism of the 
liberal as well as the dogmatism of the conservative. The 
students at Cambridge, when he afterwards became profess- 
or in the Divinity School there, found fault with him for 
being too " all-sided," — non-committal, they called it, — un- 
derstanding neither his respect for their minds, nor his rev- 
erence for the truth. He was a conscientious, natural 
eclectic, with as few intellectual prejudices as it is well 
possible to have. His lectures and sermons were full of 
suggestions, opening out lines of thought in every direction, 
eminently useful, but eminently unsatisfactory to such 
as wanted opinions formulated for filing away. It was a 
happy, cordial, cheery mind, with extensive prospects from 
all the windows, — just the mind for one like Theodore to 
bask in the light of. Now, for the first time, he had the 
intellectual atmosphere it was a delight to inhale. The Sun- 
day sermons revealed a sunny firmament over a rich world. 
The week-day talks made the steps familiar with fresh 
paths and fields of literature. Here were books without 
stint ; here was a friendly interpreter and a sympathetic 
inquirer. In the two-^ars ji.e, was in Watertown, Mr. 
Parker incurred an immense debt to this high-minded 
scholar, who had an answer to his questions, and an inex- 
haustible patience in listening. The debt was increased in 
later years, and no part of it was ever forgotten. 

Intimacy with Mr. Francis brought Theodore into rela- 
tions with the parish. He became superintendent of the 
Sunday school. He would not have been himself if he 
had not formed a Bible-class ; nor would he have been 
himself if he had taught in the usual way. He was pecu- 
liar, however, chiefly in his method. His views were as yet 
too unformed to be a basis for instruction. He was a Uni- 



TEACHING AND STUDY. 35 

tarian who lived quietly within the confines of his sect 
Among the teachers in the Sunday school was Miss Lydia 
D. Cabot, the only daughter of John Cabot of Newton : 
she resided with an aunt in Boston, but was boarding in 
Watertown under the same roof with him. An attachment 
growing up between them, they plighted troths, and in due 
time became husband and wife. * The passion of love 
awoke a new being within him. " I have a new pleasure 
in the discharge of my duties. I love my books the more, 
my school the more, mankind the more, and even, I believe, 
my God the more, from loving you." " It has been in other 
time than this my highest pleasure thus to pass my time, 
thus to spend my nights, in ' high concord with the God- 
like past ; ' to collect my own thoughts, and search for new. 
But now I find a new pleasure, which, with a louder, 
sweeter voice, speaks to the heart, and tells another tale." 

The happy letters of that period are before me ; the ten- 
derest passages, meant only for private eyes, being omitted. 
The dates are very near together. The writer's frankness in 
pouring out the contents of his mind will entertain the 
reader, yet betray no confidence. Here are a few ex- 
tracts : — 

Watertown, Nov. 21, 1833. 

I have read the Life of Milton : it contains only seventy-four 
pages ; so I finished it Monday night. Dr. Channing, in his Re- 
view, has given him praise with too much liberality ; and Johnson 
has, as usual, loaded him with asperity. Still I presume Johnson 
has the most truth on his side. Milton was a giant, and so was 
Johnson ; but one was a celestial prodigy, the other a mere 
earthly Antseus. I am glad you advance so well in Homer. 
Somebody says, " Homer is the only royal road to poetry." I 
think so. 

Dec. 5, 1833. 

Whist is an innocent amusement ; and I know no law, divine 
or human, which imposes an unpleasant sanctimoniousness on 
ministers' wives. I take but little pleasure, I confess, in such 
amusements, — a satisfactory reason for my abandoning them ; 
but it is a reason that should influence nobody else. 



36 THEODORE PARKER. 

Nov. 14, 1833. 

You speak of " poor, weak woman." Weakness and strength 
are only comparative terms. To speak absolutely, nothing is 
strong but Him who is strength itself. But a woman compara- 
tively weak ! Turn over the pages of history, and read what she 
has done. Who is it that excites the giant spirits of the world to 
run their career of glory ? and better, far better, and nobler too, 
who carries joy and peace to the fireside of the poor and the 
peasant ? . . . 

I have made very good progress in logic, and find it much 
more interesting than I expected. I shall always be delighted, 
encouraged, and excited to greater efforts, by your inquiries 
into my studies. 

Dec 27, 1833. 

Why should we not suppose all the stars, and all the planets 
supposed to belong to each, to be inhabited ? They are the 
work of an infinite Being, who had infinite wisdom, power, and 
goodness, and an infinite space to exert itself in ; and, if we sup- 
pose all inhabited with various orders of animals like the 
tribes of common earth, what a noble universe we have to 
contemplate ! . . . 

I do not suppose Moses or Joshua, or even Solomon himself, 
knew this, or ever thought of it. Nobody in their age had such 
ideas. The prophets were illuminated with light from on high ; 
but it was to rebuke idolatry, reprove oppression, and excite to 
virtue : and of Christ himself we may say, that though he must 
have known this, yet he came to teach religion, to console 
affliction, and to excite mankind to virtue, not to teach as- 
tronomy. 



Jan. 15, 1834. 

I shall probably finish " Waverley " and " The Antiquary " this 
week. You know what a task it commonly is to read novels, and 
will perhaps be surprised to find I have hardihood enough to 
attempt one. Do you recollect the Rev. Mr. Blattergowl in 
" The Antiquary " ? What a " woful example " Sir Walter held 
up for the admonition of prosing parsons ! 



TEACHING AND STUDY. 37 

Jan. 22, 1834. 

I have been this afternoon to examine a school, which 
afforded me a walk of somewhat more than two miles. . . . 

Sawed wood half an hour this morning. As you will see, I have 
not been without exercise ; that is, exercise of the body, which, 
St. Paul says, "profiteth little : " my^mjental exercise has been 
reading sixty-six pages of German, and almost all the Reviews. 
Sunday "mglif "read Scripture of course, and other^^books. . . . 
A little in Byron has been read. He was a wicked poet, and a 
wicked man. His striking, his graphic descriptions enchain the 
mind, and the melody of his verse recurs continually to one's ears ; 
but the heart of the thoughtless is in the mean time corrupted. 
Miss Martineau says Scott has done more' to extirpate vice 
from the world than any preacher in England. It is perhaps true ; 
and she might have added, that no philosopher (!) who denied 
his God, no epicurean who struck at the distinction of good and 
evil, has done so much to corrupt the hearts of youth, to stagger 
the minds of the giddy, as this misanthropic Lord Byron. 

Feb. 27, 1834. 

Mr. Francis called here yesterday, and lent me the necessary 
books : so I have commenced the great study, — the criticism of 
the New Testament ; and with the little which has been yet 
explored of it I am not only pleased, but highly delighted. 
It is, as you know, a subject on which the noblest minds that 
philosophy has enlightened have been busy these thousand 
years, and without exhausting the boundless subject. . . . 

I have been to examine a school this afternoon. This is the 
last of my service as school committee ; and glad I am. 

Feb. 26, 1834. 

I consulted Mr. Francis about going to Cambridge soon and 
joining the present junior class. He thought it a good plan, 
and gave me letters of introduction to Mr. Ware. I have walked 
to Cambridge this afternoon, and seen all the faculty. Have re- 
solved to make the attempt : so I shall finish school-keeping 
on the 1st of April, and remove to Cambridge, take a room at 
the Hall, and commence study. ... 

Diligence and patient application will enable me to accom- 
4 



38 THEODORE PARKER. 

plish by next commencement all that the class will by that 
time have completed ; and no disadvantage will be incurred by 
thus commencing. I shall study alone all the class has yet 
attempted ; and, if I stay at Cambridge, can hear Mr. Palfrey's 
lectures. . . . 

Nothing is too much for young ambition to hope, no eminence 
too lofty for his vision, no obstacle too difficult for his exertions, 
and no excellence unattainable. Patience, perseverance, prayer, 
have done something already ; and when we consider that sin- 
cere desires are never neglected, and real endeavors never 
unassisted, we need not despair of making some approaches at 
least to the eminence Mr. Palfrey now occupies. Would not 
this be truly delightful ? No situation can be more honorable, 
no task more pleasant, no prospect more celestial, than that of a 
virtuous, faithful clergyman. .... 

I have finished " Childe Harold," and am better pleased with 
it than with " Don Juan," because it contains more soberness 
of thought, with less of blasphemy and immorality. There is 
less fire in Harold than in the other hero, but less rage, folly, 
and madness. 

March 13, 1834. 

. . . The story of the witch of Endor is quite curious, and 
has served to perplex many of the best commentators. But it 
can be explained without any thing supernatural being sup- 
posed. 

I do not think Saul saw Samuel : the witch only pretended to 
see him, and gave the answers as if Samuel himself were actually 
present. It deserves notice, too, that nothing new is told, — 
nothing which Samuel had not declared while alive. . . . 

Many consider all the Psalms of David as inspired. But do 
they all breathe the good and merciful spirit of the Lord ? If 
we view them as works of inspiration, they appear incon- 
sistent with the character of God ; but if we regard them 
as only the odes of a pious king, who yet had all the frailties 
of a man, they must be pronounced excellent, though often 
savoring of a revengeful spirit.. 

March 26, 1834. 
. . . Much in this world is ruled by a power we cannot control ; 
but much also is left completely in our own power. Fate cannot 



TEACHING AND STUDY. 39 

prevent our being good: it may forbid us to be great. Let us, 
then, build our castles upon goodness, not greatness ; upon the 
esteem of the virtuous, not the admiration of the giddy. 

Perhaps this is the last letter I shall ever write you from this 
place, since school closes in a week. 

There was another, a very long and singular one, — about 
the strangest kind of a love-letter ever penned. It is taken 
up chiefly with an imaginary conversation between a horse 
and a goose, in which each sings his own praises, and cele- 
brates the glories of his race. ' Then the pleasant epistles 
run on till marriage ends the correspondence, — a strain 
of moral reflection, criticism, notes on books, remarks on 
persons, accounts of walks and talks, drolleries, bits of sen- 
timent, rhapsodies, interspersed with poems " to his mis- 
tress' eye-brow," — fresh, buoyant, various, with but one 
or two passing touches of sorrow, which yet hardly deserves 
so expressive a word, and with sparkles of gladness shining 
through them all. 

The two years in Watertown were eventful years both 
of joy and labor. The achievements in scholarship were 
amazing. In spite of school-teaching and school-exami- 
nations, social intercourse, visits to Mr. Francis, commu- 
nions with Miss Cabot, he gives us his word that he pursued 
the study of Latin and Greek authors, the most of Cicero, 
Herodotus, Thucydides, Pindar, Theocritus, Bion, Mos- 
chus (the last four of which he translated), and ^Eschylus. 
He wrote for his Sunday-school class a history of the Jews, 
which still exists in manuscript ; pushed his studies in 
metaphysics, taking up Cousin and the new school of 
French philosophers ; began the study of Hebrew, walking, 
as before said, to Charlestown to meet Mr. Seixas, a Jew ; 
and entered on the study of theology. Besides all this, 
the German poets Goethe, Schiller, Klopstock, had a share 
of his attention, and the works of Coleridge engaged a 
portion of his thoughts. An occasional novel by Walter 
Scott, or a poem of Byron, beguiled the leisure moments. 



40 THEODORE PARKER. 

His studies ran into the early morning. The landlady 
kept the lamps well supplied ; but there was no oil in his 
lamp when the day broke. 

To leave Watertown cost him pain. His boys loved 
him, and concerted a surprise for him in the shape of a sil- 
ver cup, with ceremony of presentation-speech by Master 
Briggs. The testimonial of affection was more than Theo- 
dore could bear; his tears, whether of joy or grief, being 
always near the surface. A few moments of retirement 
were necessary to regain sufficient command of himself to 
dismiss the school. 



CHAPTER IV. 



DIVINITY HALL. 



Mr. Parker went to Cambridge Divinity School in 
April, 1834^ — three months before the close of the junior or 
first year of his class, — and remained there two years and 
a quarter. He had saved up a little money from his teach- 
ing, — about one hundred and fifty dollars ; having spent 
some two hundred dollars in books while at Watertown, and 
clothed himself besides. The expenses of the Hall were not 
heavy, — sixty-six dollars annually for tuition, and care of 
room ; one dollar and ninety cents a week for board in 
"commons." This last expense he tried to save by board- 
ing himself at half a dollar a week on dry bread, — a course 
that he was wise enough to abandon for a boarding-house so 
far off that he must needs get exercise in going to and from 
his meals. A successful application for assistance from the 
beneficiary fund gave him from a hundred and ten to a 
hundred and fifty dollars more. Teaching, first one boy, 
then two, then two young girls in addition, brought a mod- 
erate accession to his income. He was countenanced in 
his habits of economy by his fellow-students ; for nearly 
all who came to study theology were poor. The wretch- 
ed custom of boarding themselves, which meant eating 
crackers or other food that needed no cooking, was not 
uncommon. There was no refectory at the Hall : the 
college commons were half a mile off. Divinity students 
are apt to be touched by a flavor of asceticism from 
4* 41 



42 THEODORE PARKER. 

ancient traditions ; but economy was the main considera- 
tion. 

Divinity Hall is a long brick "building, that stands at some 
distance from the street, and is approached by a pretty 
shaded avenue. It contains rooms for the accommoda- 
tion of students, — small, but convenient and pleasant, — 
recitation-rooms, a pleasant chapel, and a scanty library. 
The college-library was open to the students, and was, as 
it is now, the main resource for scholars who travelled out 
of the beaten path. In front of the hall a broad green 
made an excellent play-ground. In the rear were the out- 
buildings, residence of janitor, and so forth : behind these 
were pretty woods. The professors lived in the neighbor- 
hood, — Dr. Palfrey at the end of a continuation of the 
avenue • Mr. Norton, not then a professor, on a handsome 
place across the fields behind ; Mr. Ware in a modest 
house just beyond the entrance-gate. 

Few divinity students have the polished air of young 
gentlemen. Parker was no exception to the rest in his 
unformed appearance; his long, thick hair; his dress, neat, 
but carelessly worn. But, in other respects, he was re- 
markable. 

" My first and unchanged feeling," says C. A. Bartol, 
"was of his exuberant life, restless ambition to excel, 
and an honesty that knew not how to lie. The ruddy face ; 
firm and eager grasp ; the manner nothing if not natural ; 
either a complete retreat into himself, or unmistakable evo- 
lution to draw the enemy's fire ; the smile, frank as spring 
and sweet as summer, or ready to curl with biting scorn ; 
no maiden's blushing cheek more ingenuously modest, and 
no graduate's tongue from the college, whose privilege was 
not his, more ingeniously acute. I remember him, in the 
theological debates, sitting still in his seat, and tying noise- 
less knots in his handkerchief, every one of which, he told 
me, meant some argument for which he had a reply. After- 
wards I see him, as he stood before a marble statue, called 



DIVINITY HALL. 43 

' The Genius of Love,' by Horatio Greenough, in my 
parlor, in earnest admiration, but with no pretence. Per- 
haps his emotion helped him to hew that other statue of 
tranquil fervor in his soul, of which, in his * Discourse of 
Religion,' he speaks ; and doubtless the knotted silk, in 
the sham-fight of abstract questions, was practice prelimi- 
nary to the woven whip-lash he was to lay on all the hypoc- 
risies, iniquities, and superstitions of Church and State." 

There were about thirty students at the Hall when Mr. 
Parker joined the school. His own class consisted of 
eight, of whom four are still in the ministry : one of them, 
Abiel Abbot Livermore, is president of Meadville Theo- 
logical School in Pennsylvania. Of the rest, one lives in 
seclusion in Salem, having early left the ministry; another 
is editor of "The Journal of Music" in Boston, — the fore- 
most musical critic there ; a third is an artist, poet, and 
man of letters. It is a little singular, that, of so small a 
class, so many should have retired from the profession. 
The studies the first year were in Hebrew, the criticism 
of the New Testament, the evidences of Christianity. 
There was, once a week, an exercise in extemporaneous 
speaking, and an exercise in declamation. On Friday 
evening the whole school assembled in the chapel for free 
debate on some given theme, generally of a social charac- 
ter. Interest in questions of concern to humanity at large 
was promoted by the " Philanthropic Society," which held 
meetings once a fortnight. At these meetings a commit- 
tee appointed for the purpose presented a report on some 
large subject, like " Intemperance," " License-Laws," "The 
Wages of Women : " the members joined in the discussion. 
The whole school listened to a lecture on Saturday morn- 
ing on the composition of sermons. The senior class 
showed how much they had profited by the instruction by 
preaching in the chapel on Sunday evenings, professors 
and students attending. The religious interests of the 
school were provided for by daily services of prayer in the 



44 THEODORE PARKER. 

chapel, a general religious meeting on Thursday evening, 
and such private exercises as the students might hold 
among themselves. Opportunity for practice in some of 
the departments of ministerial work was afforded by the 
different Sunday schools in the neighborhood, where the 
young men took classes, or acted as superintendents ; and 
by the State Prison in Charlestown, whither the more ear- 
nest and sympathetic repaired on Sunday morning to teach 
and help morally the inmates. 

Here was duty enough to occupy all the hours. Theo- 
dore threw himself into it with his whole might. He had 
come there to work ; and work he did, at whatever invited. 
It is quite credible that he studied fourteen hours a day : 
even his astonishing force of concentration and acquisi- 
tion required no less for what he undertook. A companion 
at the school remembers that "we all looked upon him 
as a prodigious athlete in his studies. He made daily ac- 
quaintance with books which were sealed books to many 
old biblical scholars, and, to us youngsters of the school, 
were scarcely known even by name. He would dive into 
the college-library, and fish up huge, venerable tomes in 
Latin and Greek, and lug them up to his room, and go 
into them as a boarding-school girl would go into a novel. 
We soon saw what his extraordinary capacities were of 
reading and retention. He literally devoured books. The 
rapidity of his reading was something wonderful. Great 
things were prophesied of him ; but it was supposed he 
would be little more than a scholar, — an extraordinary 
book-worm. None guessed that he was ere long to be 
one of the most remarkable men of the day in more ways 
than one ; that the immense fund of learning he was lay- 
ing up was but his arsenal of weapons with which later he 
was to do battle for pure, unadulterated Christianity." 

Yet at that very time his power of speech and of moral 
feeling was attracting attention. He was the best debater, 
though not the best writer, in the Hall ; always speaking 



DIVINITY HALL. 45 

vigorously, and to the point, with an independence of 
thought, an enthusiasm of manner, and a freshness, that 
gave promise of greater pulpit power than he at first dis- 
played. He liked real themes and real talk. He missed 
none of the exercises that tended to equip him for his 
office ; was devoted to his class at the State Prison, pre- 
ferring to deal with genuine cases of moral need, and 
showing uncommon ability to interest unpromising sub- 
jects. He was social too, as mere book-worm's are not ; 
running into his classmates' rooms for a chat or a gambol. 
He had as little dust on the surface of his mind as the 
airiest of them all : none flushed quicker with indignation, 
none broke out more boisterously into mirth. 

The same genial reporter first quoted, C. P. Cranch, 
says, " His temperament seemed one charged full of 
electricity, so that he was literally snapping at times with 
sparks of fun and satire. After the long hours of close 
study in his library, his mind would indulge itself in the 
most boyish and playful rebounds. He had the keenest 
appreciation of the humorous and the ludicrous. In his 
sportive and satiric veins he would throw off the most 
amusing conceits and pasquinades. His satire was chiefly 
directed against the theology and social shams of the day. 
His sallies of wit loved to take a pictorial shape. Had 
he possessed a talent for drawing, he would have been a 
Hogarth. This Rabelaisian trait would twinkle continually 
in his eyes, and lurk about the corners of his mouth. It 
was, however, always tempered and subdued by a becoming 
deference to his office of teacher and clergyman. 

"I remember a whimsical and original joke of his at 
the Divinity School. It was a play of animal spirits, a 
practical jest, a protest and a satire combined. Two or 
three of us divinity students — I remember John Dwight 
was one — were in full musical blast at something — flut- 
ing or singing, I forget which — in one of the rooms of 
Divinity Hall. Immediately opposite was Parker's room. 



46 THEODORE PARKER. 

He was evidently engaged in much more serious study, 
and more in the line of his future profession, than we 
were. Still we were quite unaware of our disturbing him, 
or we should have sunk our music to a pianissimo, or 
adjourned it to another place or hour. Theodore had, 
however, borne it some time without protesting. Pres- 
ently there was a peculiar ' movement ' in the entry, just 
outside our door, executed upon a peculiar and by no 
means musical instrument, — a sort of obligate) ad libitum 
bass, — thrown in as an accompaniment to our strains. 
On opening ' the door to ascertain the nature of these 
strange sounds, there was Theodore, who had left his 
folios of the Latin fathers, had rushed into the cellar, and 
brought up a wood-horse, saw, and log of wood, on which 
he was exercising his vigorous sinews — see-saw, see-saw 
— to our utter discomfiture and amusement. As for Theo- 
dore, he barely smiled." 

The "Common-Place Book " contains a page of original 
puns, which indicate that his brains could at times leave 
him as completely as they ever leave the professors of that 
peculiar kind of witlessness. If the jokes were strictly 
original, they might be excused ; but some of them bear 
traces of very remote antiquity. Their execrableness 
alone commended them, perhaps ; and their venerableness 
attested their merit. 

Such a man could not be a bookworm : still his bookish 
achievements were most remarkable. Only by transcrib- 
ing the journal, commenced in 1835, cou ld any idea be 
obtained of the extent of his researches The folio pages 
are crowded with lists of books read or to be read, — analy- 
ses, summaries, comments on writers of every description, 
in every tongue. Only to name them would be a fatigue, — 
Eichhorn, Herder, Ammon, De Wette, Paulus, Philo, the 
Greek historians, the fathers of the Church, the Greek and 
Latin poets, Plato, Spinoza, the Wolfenbuttel Fragments. 
The succession is bewildering ; but there is the record 



DIVINITY HALL. 47 

in the private journal, the veracity whereof cannot be 
disputed, — a record showing acquaintance not with the 
names of the books merely, but with the contents. In 
two months, November and December, 1835, tne names 
of sixty-five volumes are given as having been read 
in German, English, Danish, Latin, Greek, reaching all 
the way from " Peter Simple " to Bouterwek and Rosen- 
miiller. One of them was Dr. Channing's " Essay on 
Slavery ; " the first seed, perhaps, of the tree that spread 
so widely in ten years. The seed fell upon good soil ; for 
Theodore, though generally indifferent to party politics, 
held liberal opinions from the first. He never approved 
of slavery or defended it, or was silent when others spoke 
in its favor. Dr. Francis in Watertown observed that. 

His power of getting at the secret of a language was 
wonderful. Hebrew he taught to a class of collegians ; 
and during Dr. Palfrey's absence in New Orleans, in 1836, 
he took the professor's place as Hebrew instructor at the 
Hall. His studies in languages were not always pushed 
very far ; a taste sometimes sufficed ; but the taste detected 
the quality of the speech. Some of his studies in com- 
parative philology are curious. In the list of languages 
from whose literature he drank deeper or lighter draughts 
we find Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Swe- 
dish, Icelandic, modern Greek, Chaldee, Arabic, Persian, 
Coptic, Ethiopic, Russian. "The Swedish language is 
easy, and I expect to get much amusement and instruction 
from it. The Danish presents more difficulties than 
Swedish ; and I shall not study it extensively, but soon 
make it give place to some other." The Russian he 
dropped, being unable to master the sounds of the lan- 
guage. Later in life he mastered it so far as to become 
acquainted with the dialect that is used by the priests. 
President White of Cornell found him as well booked in 
Russian affairs as he himself, who had been studying them 
on the spot for months. A friend found him, one day 



48 THEODORE PARKER. 

in later life, poring over the grammar of the Mpongwe 
tongue, a dialect of Africa. The German furnished him 
the richest materials for thought in theology, philosophy, 
criticism, and poetry. /His own English speech was -not 
neglected. The journal bears traces of serious work on 
the Anglo-Saxon alphabet, and on the derivation of Celtic 
and Gothic tongues. One page of " The Common-Place 
Book " gives a comparative table of characters in Phoeni- 
cian, Hebrew, Etruscan, Greek, Latin, Runic, Irish, Thibe- 
tan, and two others whose names are illegible. 

To deal with such materials, one's tools must be in 
good condition. He was wont to whet his memory on a 
huge chart, covered with dates set down in irregular order, 
which he had posted on his door. Here are canons of 
self-discipline that he made for himself. They are printed 
as they stand ; though one or two of them are for the 
privacy of his own eye, and must be read as the secret 
thoughts of a man* in his closet : — 

I. Physical. 

i. Avoid excess in meat and drink. 

2. Take exercise in the air at least three hours a day. 

3. Always get six hours' sleep. (To this is added 

in pencil, as an afterthought, " More is better : 
seven hours certainly ; eight hours very often, 
and always would be more suitable and proper.") 

II. Intellectual. 

I. Explore a subject when curiosity is awake. Sometimes 
this is impossible. Note the subject in a book, and 
examine as soon as possible in this manner : — 

1. By finding out what I really know upon the subject. 

2. Obtaining clear and distinct notions in some way. 
3; By stating in words the result of my study, and 

repeating till it has made a deep impression. 
Sometimes write them in this book. 

4. If historical, settle the time ; writers who related it ; 

their character. 

5. The cause. 

6. The effect. 



DIVINITY HALL. 49 

II. Keep the mind obedie?it to the will, so as to be independ- 
ent of external affairs. This cannot be com- 
pletely effected, but may be, in a great measure, 
by the use of certain intermedia; viz., words of 
poets, &c. 
III. Moral. 

I. Preserve devoutness by, — 

1. Contemplation of Nature ; 

2. Of the attributes of God ; 

3. Of my own dependence. 

4. By prayer at night and morn, and at all times when 

devout feelings come over me. 

II. Preserve gratitude by reflections on God's mercies to 

me, — 

1. In giving blessings unasked ; 

2. Answering prayer. 

III. Restrain licentiousness of imagination, which com- 

prehends many particulars that must not be 
committed to paper, lest the paper blush. 

That last touch shows the sincerity of the man. None 
but the purest ever make such entries. But for that whis- 
per in the confessional, it would never have been sus- 
pected that tainted fancies ever surprised him, so utterly 
blameless was his life, so strange to his lips was the sound 
of an impure word, so alien from his frank blue eyes was 
the most fleeting look suggestive of indelicacy. His 
moral feelings were strict to austerity. Even his religious 
sentiments had a tinge of Puritanism in them. 

To a nephew he writes in 1834 : " One thing in your 
letter did displease me : I mean the unholy manner in 
which you quoted words of sacred writ. Such use of 
Scripture, you know, is inconsistent with the Christian 
spirit ; and you will only need to have its bad tendency 
pointed out to avoid it in the future." To the same, a 
month later: " Do you attend Mr. Barry's (Unitarian) 
church constantly? Are you yet a member? If not, I 
do not accuse you : yet I think it is the duty of every one 
5 



50 THEODORE PARKER. 

to employ all the means of religion within reach ; and this 
is certainly a powerful one. It is not an end to be 
obtained : it is one of the means to promote spiritual-mind- 
edness and true piety. Perhaps you think keeping the law, 
and being merely a good moral man, is religion : I think 
not. Do not think I mean to reproach you. It is only 
my intention to warn." Again, a few weeks later, to the 
same nephew, so near his own age that he prefers to 
address him as "friend:" "So a man is a Christian, it 
makes little difference whether he is a Calvinist or 
Lutheran, Papist or Protestant. We all know that each 
sect contains in its instructions enough of pure and vital 
Christian advice to insure our salvation, so far as this 
depends upon ourselves or our fellow-mortals. ... I 
am glad you find delight in worshipping where you do. 
I hope God will hear your prayers, and always grant you 
happiness in your belief, which I will never exhort you to 
change; though every conscientious man would prefer 
all his friends to be of his own persuasion." In a subse- 
quent letter of this intimate correspondence he says, " I 
do not suppose you mean to say that religion is some one 
thing, state, or feeling, which comes to you in a moment, 
when you had no conception of such a thing before ; but 
that it is love to God, and good will to men, which gradu- 
ally arises in the heart, and which goes on constantly 
increasing. . . . Remember, there is no standing still in 
religion. If you are not going forward, you are falling 
backward. Strive for greater eminence in religion. 
Labor to be more constant in prayer, more exact in 
self-watchfulness, more perfect in your outward conduct. 
But, above all, strive, watch, pray, to be more pure in 
heart. This is the one thing needful. So far as you fail 
of this, though you attend all the meetings in the coun- 
try, and pray with the force of a martyr, — nay, though 
you die a martyr, — you fail of religion ; you come short 
of the requirements of Christianity. ... Do not forget 



DIVINITY HALL. 51 

charity for men's opinions, defects ; yes, for their crimes. 
Do not slight and scorn a man because you think he is 
less religious than you." In December of the same year 
(1834) he writes further : " I attended Dr. Beecher's six- 
days' meeting in Boston some three or four years ago. I 
confess I derived much advantage from it; but it was 
too harsh a remedy for gentle souls. Neither Christ nor 
his apostles ever drove lambs into the fold. A storm 
drives, every now and then, a ship to land ; but how 
many perish in the waters ! " The letter goes on : " If it 
is a man's duty to be devout in prayer, it is no less so to 
be devout in business. God never commanded us to be 
charitable and kind an hour in the morning and a little 
time at night, and suffered us to be peevish and revenge- 
ful all the rest of the day. We are not to keep one day 
holy, and defile all the rest." 

Two more short extracts from the letters to this nephew, 
Mr. Greene, will give a sufficient notion of his religious 
mind at this period. The first is dated Nov. 14, 1835. 
" By religion I mean . . . total obedience to the will of 
God in all things, the most trifling as well as the most 
important. This is the religion of the apostles, the reli- 
gion of Christ. ... Its points are self-distrust, meekness, 
cheerfulness, joy, faith, love. If any man on earth has 
cause to be joyful, it is the Christian." The date of the 
second extract is June n, 1834: "I consider a man's duty 
to be this, — to do the most good and the least evil pos- 
sible. But how is this to be done ? To whom is this to be 
done ? A man of tolerable intellect, and of little educa- 
tion, quite late in life becomes religious ; feels an earnest 
desire to ' do good,' to ' benefit mankind : ' so he leaves 
his business, and, half educated as he is, becomes a 
preacher. Now, the man's motive may be the best possi- 
ble \ his desire to ' do good ' may be worthy of angels : 
but he entirely mistakes the means of assisting man. He 
actually retards the growth of religion, and puts back the 
truth, good as his heart is." 



52 THEODORE PARKER. 

Now for his theological opinions. In 1833, as we learn 
from a letter to Mr. George T. Bigelow, he is inclined to be 
sarcastical on the subject of scepticism ; and in a long, 
strenuously-underlined epistle, caricatures the rationaliz- 
ing process, by stating doubts in regard to the career and 
even the existence of Christopher Columbus, though still 
declaring, that, in his judgment, doubt arising from the 
spirit of free inquiry is preferable to faith founded on preju- 
dice. " Ignorance is not devotion, or the mother of devo- 
tion ; and faith which is not founded upon reason is not 
faith, but folly" But he was very slow in applying to the 
ordinary Unitarian creed of his youth the results of his 
study. Immediately on going to Cambridge, he writes to 
his nephew, Mr. Greene, as follows : " I believe there is 
one God, who has existed from all eternity, with whom 
the past, present, and future are alike present ; that he is 
almighty, good, and merciful ; will reward the good, and 
punish the wicked, both in this world and the next. 

" This punishment may be eternal. Of course I believe 
that neither the rewards nor punishments of a future state 
are corporal : bodily pleasures soon satiate ; and may God 
preserve us from a worse pimishment than one's own con- 
science ! I believe the books of the Old and New Testa- 
ments to have been written by men inspired by God for 
certain purposes ; but I do not think them inspired at all 
times. I believe that Christ was the Son of God, conceived 
and born in a miraculous manner ; that he came to preach 
a better religion by which men may be saved. 

" This religion, as I think, allows men the very highest 
happiness in this life, and promises eternal felicity in 
another world. I do not think our sins will be forgiven 
because Christ died. I believe God knows all that we 
shall do, but does not cause us to do any thing. I do not 
believe in total depravity, or that Adam's sin will be im- 
puted to us. 

" I believe, if a man leads a good and pure life, he will 



DIVINITY HALL. 53 

be accepted with God. I believe prayer to be an especial 
duty man owes to himself. God is not to be benefited by 
the paltry homage man can give him ; but we — we are bene- 
fited by it. I think reading the holy Bible, attending church, 
prayers, professing religion, and pious conversations, are 
all means of religion. ... I think sins in the heart as bad 
as sins of the hand. . . . This will, perhaps, be sufficient to 
show the grand leading features of my belief." In 1835, 
when Mr. Orville Dewey delivered the Dudleian Lecture, 
Mr. Parker made note of it in his journal thus : " It was 
the best, perhaps, I have ever heard, though upon the least 
interesting part of the evidences of revealed religion ; viz., 
1 Miracles.' He removed the presumptions against them. 
The objections were not only met, but overturned." 

But the active mind is at work. Here is one of the first 
signs of it in the journal, Nov. 2, 1835 : — 

" Tertullian I have always looked upon with considerable jeal- 
ousy, and believe he introduced more heresies and ridiculous 
doctrines into the Church than almost all the other fathers, not 
excepting Austin (Augustine). He first introduced the notion 
that faith and reason contradict each other naturally. He 
thought faith which contradicted reason was most acceptable 
to God. Everybody knows he thought the soul material, &c. : 
he thought it was sky-blue. 

" I am heart-weary and reason-weary of these same doting 
fathers. They have sense ; but it is like some worthy's wit, — ' a 
grain of wheat in a bushel of chaff.' I shall soon be done with 
them, however ; for the present, at least. One of the greatest 
proofs of the darkness of the monastic ages is the folly-admira- 
tion bestowed on these same nonsense-writers. 

" Origen was not a good Hebrew scholar ; and of course his 
principles of interpretation were bad. He did the Church an 
essential service by his deep philosophy and eloquence. . . . 

" Jerome loved glory rather than truth ; was superstitious ; 

and an introducer of important errors, both in doctrine and 

interpretation. He was not a profound scholar in Hebrew, or 

even in Greek. He tasted of theology, rather than exhausted 

5* 



54 THEODORE PARKER. 

it. He wrote his books in great haste. Yet many good things, 
they say, can be gleaned from his seven folios. 

" St. Augustine, we all know, introduced more errors into the 
Church than any other man. Many of his doctrines fly in the 
face both of reason and virtue, to extinguish the eyes of one, 
and to stifle the breath of the other." 

"Nov. 17, 1835. — Finished De WetteV Commentary on the 
Psalms.' . . . He is a fearless critic ; and a critic should fear 
only one thing, — a falsehood. He treats the Messianic inter- 
pretation of the Psalms as a mere chimera ; which it is, in my 
humble opinion." 

The following passage from the journal shows that all 
this free-thinking is beginning to have its effect on spe- 
cial beliefs : — 

" I do not doubt that Jesus was a man ' sent from God,' and 
endowed with power from on high ; that he taught the truth, 
and worked miracles : but that he was the subject of inspired 
prophecy I very much doubt. Does he ever say so ? Admit- 
ting he did, may we not suppose that he was ignorant of the 
truth of this matter ? Was it necessary for him to know how 
much inspiration was meted out to the ancient prophets ? I 
suppose him inspired by God immediately for a certain pur- 
pose. Could he not accomplish it without understanding the 
sources whence the ancient writers drew their doctrines ? 

" But, rejecting this, why should he not accommodate himself 
to the state of the public mind ? . . . I know the above would 
appear like blasphemy to many divines ; but I must stand by 
my own master, not by another man. My confidence in the 
divinity of Christ's character, of the truth, the sufficiency, of his 
doctrine, depends not at all upon prophecies or visions or 
dreams. 

" Had the prophets only their authority to build upon, they 
would not have been believed. They spoke the words of 
ancient and notorious tradition ; but I find no mention of their 
divine inspiration." 

He finds stories of virgin-births in the legends of India, 
Persia, Greece, though he draws no inference from them ; 



DIVINITY HALL. 55 

doubts whether Luke, " whose Gospel we do not now ques- 
tion in general, could, as a foreigner lately converted to 
Christianity, transmit credible accounts of the juvenile 
history of Christ ; " and is more solicitous to glorify the 
spiritual powers of Jesus than to defend his miraculous 
birth. 

The condition of Mr. Parker's mind is best revealed in the 
pages of "The Scriptural Interpreter," a small magazine 
designed for easy family instruction, commenced in 1831 by 
Ezra Stiles Gannett, then the colleague of Dr. Channing, but 
abandoned by him on account of failing health. In 1835 
it came under the charge of Mr. Parker and two of his 
classmates. They continued the publication, writing the 
great part of it themselves, till it closed in 1836. The 
largest contributor of the three was Mr. Parker. He 
wrote constantly and frankly, reporting the results of his 
studies in biblical interpretations ; those being the matters 
he was most interested in. His articles display fairness 
and honesty, but give no evidence of peculiar boldness, 
and no sign whatever of rashness either in speech or 
thought. The papers have not the intellectual glow of^ 
speculative controversy, nor the tingling charm of genius : 
they are rather dry and dull, plodding industriously along 
over the rough ground of criticism that lay between the 
accepted Unitarianism of the period and the new views 
that had not yet been avowed, if they had been revealed. 
De Wette, Eichhorn, Astruc, and scholars of the moderate \ 
school of rationalism, supplied the material. The Authen- 
ticity and Construction of the Pentateuch, the Composition 
of the Psalms, the Dates and Ingredients of the Books of 
Isaiah, the Nature of Prophecy, the Meaning of the so- 
called " Messianic Prophecies," were the topics handled. 
Theological points were scarcely discussed ; principles of 
philosophy were neither applied nor debated ; the themes 
dealt with were rarely exhibited in their general aspects ; 
the question between naturalists and supernaturalists, 



56 THEODORE PARKER. 

involving the miracle controversy which raged so fiercely 
a few years later, was not touched. There was nothing that 
should have disturbed a calm mind. Mr. Parker himself 
demurred at accepting the positions taken by Hengsten- 
r berg and other critics of the rationalistic school. He thinks 
/ that De Wette makes the prodigy of the withered fig-tree 
i easier of credence by suggesting that the blasting did not 
follow immediately on the curse. " Gabler undertakes to 
show that a revelation is not possible, which seems utterly 
unphilosophical." To Amnion's argument that Moses could 
not have written the Pentateuch, because that shows a fin- 
ished language, he replies, " All that may be true ; but I do 
; not believe it." Goethe's remark on the Hebrew Scriptures 
is quoted admiringly : " They stand so happily combined to- 
gether, that, even out of the most diverse elements, the feeling 
of a whole still rises before us. They are complete enough 
to satisfy, fragmentary enough to excite, barbarous enough 
to arouse, tender enough to appease." " Delany believes 
in the universality of the Deluge ; as who does not ? " 
The arguments of those who held that the laws command- 
ing the extirpation of the Canaanites could not have been 
inspired by Jehovah were not quite convincing, though 
plausible : " It must be remembered, the nations to be 
extirpated were exceedingly vicious and corrupt ; and, if 
suffered to remain, would doubtless have led away the 
Jews from their better faith. If nations are by the divine 
permission visited with earthquakes and pestilences, why 
may not the sword be employed for similar purposes ? " 

The absence of discrimination in this extract, which 
places war and earthquake on the same footing ; the assump- 
tion that Jehovah did send both pestilence and war ; the 
quiet non-distribution of leading terms, — should have indi- 
cated that as yet nothing was to be feared from the audacity 
of a heedless intellect. But some did fear. Angry subscri- 
bers sent in their warning protests against the destructive 
criticism that was unsettling one passage, book, prophecy, 



DIVINITY HALL. 57 

after another, till the pious Christian had nothing left to 
stand on but what was in common with the Deist. " Are 
the theologians at Cambridge determined to break down 
the prophecies, and make our blessed Saviour and his apos- 
tles impostors and liars ? " was the cry of the sentinels on 
the walls of Zion. Eminent divines shook their heads ; 
were grieved that such an article had been written. The 
writer was dimly sorry for the uproar he did not under- 
stand, but went on, step by step, apparently seeing as 
little as anybody else the end toward which he was tend- 
ing, and preserved, both by his mental fearlessness and 
his spirituality of faith, from any apprehension of dan- 
ger. His confidence in the truth, and in the honest mind's 
power to apprehend it, was simple and entire. "Who dares 
say that the man who will adhere to God's truth is rash ? 
and who will deny the presumption of one who dares 
depart from it?" This noble unconsciousness kept him 
safe, but made him, in the eyes of sectarians, unsafe. 

The time had not come for him to bring his mental in- 
tegrity to bear. 

Possibly one reason for the slowness with which revolu- 
tionary ideas took possession of the future " heresiarch " 
may have been the literary spirit that at this period con- 
trolled him. His reading was by no means confined to 
books of theology and criticism. He enjoys Dante and 
Tasso. Goethe begins to interest him, as he did all his 
life. After perusing Mrs. Austin's " Characteristics of 
Goethe," he writes, " I always feel my flame growing dim 
after such reading : it awakens a sense of dissatisfaction 
in the bosom that does not down at a moment's bidding. 
The translatress intends to place Goethe in a favorable 
light ; but she does not succeed, in my opinion. I regard 
the great German literature-giant as not a little selfish: 
indeed, was not his whole character based on this feeling ? 
What are we to think of the man who shuts himself in from 
all knowledge of human misery ? What did he ever do 



58 THEODORE PARKER. 

for the cause of man ? Voltaire could be benevolent 
and patriotic : when was Goethe so ? I am, however, but 
little, nay, not at all, read in his works ; so forbear to judge. 
Heaven send it may not be true ! " A page or two farther 
on the criticism softens : " I have a better opinion of the 
giant of Germany since reading this book ('Wanderjahre') 
than before. An enemy of Christianity could by no means 
have written that description of the School of the Three 
Reverences, which terminates in reverence for one's self." 
And again : " Who can say that Goethe was ignorant of 
religion, after having read 'The Confessions of a Fair 
Penitent ' ? " 

In a correspondence with Miss Susan Burley, a woman of 
remarkable literary acquirements, he comments on the char- 
acters of the "Jerusalem Delivered," mentions with enjoy- 
ment the " sweet little wild witch-stories " of Tieck, and is 
curious about editions of Dante. His original repugnance 
to novel-reading is overcome. The journal has a page 
and a half of appreciative comment on "Tom Jones," 
which he wonders could have escaped him so long. On 
another page he writes, " I have just read ' The Linwoods,' 
a very interesting novel ; which shows the woman, however. 
I think it will do good. Much good may it do in correct 
ing the tone of society, which I regard as villanous just 
now ! " " Bubbles from the Brunnen " he finds a delightful 
book ; the " Gesta Romanorum " interest him, but one 
volume is enough ; the " Robin-Hood Ballads " carry him 
off into a dissertation on " Volk-Songs ; " Ritson's " Fairy 
Tales " amuse him ; " Peter Simple " is not at all to his 
taste ; Bowring's " Poetry of the Magyars " tempts him to 
make extracts ; Longfellow's " Pilgrimage beyond the Sea " 
is a pleasant after-dinner book ; Heine's " Germany " startles 
him, — " The writer must be a man of genius, and can be no 
other than a misanthrope and a not-Christian." The list 
is interminable : Southey's " Doctor," " Memoirs of Ober- 
lin," Toulmin's " Life of Socinus," — all food is nourish- 



DIVINITY HALL. 59 

ing to the hungry mind. He comes across Bulwer's " Ri- 
enzi," — "a fine work, full of beauty, truth, and nobleness. 
There is rather too much of it." In December, 1836, he 
falls in with " Pickwick." Moore's " Lalla Rookh " pleases 
him : " I have not lately been so much delighted with any 
poem as with this little treasury of sweets. It is full of the 
East, redolent of its citron-groves and spices, and glows 
with its fervid sun and burning soul." 

After this the transition is not so violent as it would be 
from the Greek and Latin fathers to floods of verses from 
his own pen. This favorite amusement of young students 
was indulged in freely. The titles will sufficiently indicate 
their character: "To L— a," "Moral Beauty," "A Vision," 
"Midnight," "Gratitude," "Prayer," "Winter," "An Even- 
ing Hymn," "To Sadness," "Two Songs," "Eternity," 
"A Serenade," "Reflections at Midnight," "Absence," 
"Midnight Musings," "Spring," "The Complaint of a 
Lover," " The Stars," " To a Little Flower," " Morning 
Hymn," "The Rising Moon," " The Setting Star," " Stan- 
zas," and so on, — sonnets and songs and meditations, in 
various moods, easy-going, often melodious, more often sen- 
timental. The author thought them worth committing to 
his journal ; but it would be hardly worth while to print 
them here. A specimen, however, must be given. The 
selection would be easier were the pieces fewer, or were any 
distinguished by special merit of sentiment or expression. 



EVENING HYMN. 

The chiming of the evening breeze 

That plays among the boughs ; 
The ripple of the purple seas 

As Night her mantle throws ; 
The unveiling of each timid star 
That sheds its beauty from afar, — 
All these have voices for mine ear. 



6q THEODORE PARKER. 

All nature cries, great God ! to thee ; 

And I will raise my voice, 
Uplift my feeble minstrelsy, 

And bid my heart rejoice. 
Thy sun sheds glory in his light ; 
Deep darkness praises thee by night : 
But 'tis thy Spirit makes delight. 

Great God ! accept the humble praise 

A heart sincere would bring : 
My heart's own anthem 'tis I raise, 

My soul's desire I sing. 
Glory to thee, all gracious Lord ! 
For thou dost every gift afford, 
And gladd'st my spirit with thy word. 

It is not very good ; yet it is one of the best. Mr. Parker 
had not the poetic fire ; though he knew what it was. In 
a letter to Miss Cabot, dated March 14, 1836, he says, " I 
would I had that ' dangerous gift,' as some call it, but which 
Milton terms the 'divine gift,' — the power of the true poet. 
He possesses such a spring of ever-living water in his own 
deep and noble soul, that continually gushes up to his breast, 
and wells out in all his life. Who can fail to admire that 
profound enthusiasm with which the true poet regards all 
nature ? Nay, all that lives and moves, or merely is t has for 
him a deep and permanent charmingness. Go where he 
will, he sees Beauty ; for she dwells in his own breast, and 
diffuses her sweet influences over all his eye rests upon." 

His best poems are religious ; and the finest of these are 
the sonnets addressed to Jesus, whose name never failed 
to kindle his enthusiasm. The first was written in Decem- 
ber of this year. 

" Jesus, there is no dearer name than thine, 

Which Time has written on his endless scroll : 
Nor wreaths nor garlands ever did intwine 
So fair a temple of so vast a soul. 



DIVINITY HALL. 6 1 

Ay, every angel set his glowing seal 

Upon thy brow, and gave each human grace, 
In a sweet copy heaven to reveal, 

And stamp perfection on a mortal face. 
Once on the earth, before dull mortal eyes, 

Which could not half thy sacred radiance see, 
E'en as the emmet cannot read the skies, — 

For our weak orbs reach not immensity, — 
Once on the earth wert thou, a living shrine, 
Where dwelt the good, the lovely, the divine." 

The " sentiments " and apothegms scattered up and down 
the pages of the Journal and Common-Place Book disclose 
the earnestness of his mind : — 

" Faith is collective energy." • 

" By action of the soul the 'formless and void ' becomes 'very 
good.' " 

" Had there been no monsters to subdue, there had been no 
Hercules." 

" Love is the perfect action of the whole soul." 

" Egyptian bondage brings Egyptian darkness." 

" Nothing dries so soon as tears." 

" He that has a principle is inspired." 

" Religion is the highest form of love." 

" Wealth injures talent more than poverty. Under gold hills 
and thrones perhaps many a spiritual giant lies buried." 

" Liberty is justice secured." 

" The soul, like the magnetic needle, ever trembles for an 
embrace with God." 

" Necessity the strongest; time the wisest; man the greatest." 

" There is a Solomon in every stupid man, a devil in every 
saint." 

" Artolatry (bread-worship), — that of these times, which in- 
vert the old order, and turn God into bread, not bread into God." 

" Faith must present her credentials before she rules Reason." 

" If you dare not say what you think, soon you will dare say 
what you do not think." 

" Reason acknowledges no useless or dangerous truths." 

" If this world were all, a heart were a sad gift." 



62 THEODORE PARKER. 

" If teachers disclose truth as fast as God reveals it to them, 

there is no danger." 

" A new truth can never do so much harm as an old error." 

" God and truth are always on the same side." 

" Man may say what is heresy ; but God only can tell 

who is the heretic." 

" Philosophy is the love of wisdom ; Christianity, the wisdom 

of love." 

" Great minds mould things to thoughts : little minds mould 

thoughts to things." 

" A single seed is the result of all the suns that ever shone." 

" The faculty of love is the measure of great souls." 

" Laughter of fools is like the crackling of thorns under a 

pot, which they cannot heat, only begrime." 
" Climbing plants are always weak." 
" Avoid that society in which it is dangerous to speak, and 

painful to be silent." 

This vein of moral earnestness crops out on almost every 
page. A passage from Plato suggests this comment : — 

" What is it proper for the ignorant to suffer from the wise ? 
Learning. What, then, is due from the good to the bad ? Hurt ? 
Not at all. Goodness is due them. Is a man bad : the good 
shall teach him goodness. Penal legislation now-a-days has 
all the effect of the purest injustice in driving the half-guilty 
to increased crime, and in making doubly deep the hatred of 
the revengeful. I doubt not the angel of humanity will beat 
with her golden pinions all prisons to small dust." 

One brief note intimates that he had no fondness for 
general society : " A ball at Dr. Bowditch's : quite a large 
party. This balling is tedious business to me. A walk 
of four miles in and four miles out alone, in a terribly 
cold night, is no joke." He takes kindly to vacations, 
however : — 

" I have passed the vacation (winter of 1836) delight- 
fully ; never more so. Time has flown by on silken pinions. 
I have been at Boston most of the time ; and to see one's 



DIVINITY HALL. 63 

dearest of all friends every day, and a thousand times every 
day, is heart-ravishing. Have been to Salem. Saw all 
the lions of the place, from the ' murder-house ' to ' Deacon 
Giles's Distillery.' I have made calls, and spent evenings 
abroad, almost without end. Indeed, I have completely 
reversed the old order of the day ; so that to be at home is 
the exception, as it formerly was the rule. ... I have been 
up to Watertown, and staid some considerable time with 
my uncle and cousins and with Dr. Francis, and have made 
a new acquaintance : I mean Mr. Bradford. I met him 
at Mr. Francis's, and walked to Boston with him : not a 
little delighted with the man." 

This certainly shows a genial spirit. That same winter 
he lectured in Concord, and passed part of an evening with 
Mr. Emerson — " truly a most delightful man " — and his 
wife. " He once said of her, that she was the ' soul of 
faith.' Of course her life is faith put in action ; and what 
more noble can be said of any one ? " 

In the month of April, 1836, the generosity of a friend 
gave him the pleasure of a trip to Washington, through 
New York and Philadelphia. Nothing occurred of note. 
In Washington he goes to the chambers of Congress ; list- 
ens to the debate on the bill " for preventing the circulation 
of incendiary papers " at the South ; hears Mr. King and 
Mr. Calhoun ; sees the " little magician " gliding round, 
clapping men on their shoulders, and shaking their hands, 
— " very artful and naughty " looking ; sees Clay, tall and 
homely, walking about in a dignified manner ; notices the 
negroes as matter of course, and remarks, "They are a 
queer set, these negroes : some of them are very merry, 
dancing and capering about on the sidewalk as if they had 
nought to do but dance. I saw two negro lovers walking 
arm-in-arm^ cooing and billing as if they could not restrain 
their joy in one another's presence. Why should color 
prevent them ? " 

In this man, clearly, there are deeps of power waiting to 



64 THEODORE PARKER. 

be stirred. The angel has not descended to trouble the 
waters : he is expected. " What a strange life is this of 
mine ! How remarkable appears the course I have run 
when I look back on it from the present moment ! Verily 
1 there's a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them 
how we will.' I wonder what the Almighty Parent designs 
for me. Where wilt thou, O Father ! cast my lot ? I would 
not seek with prurient curiosity to invade the mysterious 
cabinet of futurity ; but I must confess that I am by no 
means indifferent to the future which shall be appointed 
me. But I trust I shall be resigned to the will of Om- 
nipotence. At the worst, even, there will be enough to do : 
this is some consolation to one who loves activity, and 
would fain be useful to his fellows. 

" Opportunities for practical usefulness are always offer- 
ing themselves to the seekers ; one, too, so singularly 
blessed by Heaven as I, can carry with him another ele- 
ment of felicity, — a companion, whose brave heart mir- 
rors back my own from its celestial depths. May the Lord 
send his blessing upon us wherever we are ! " 

On June 17, 1835, he writes to Miss Cabot, "Let us 
imagine our happiness in some new station we are to 
occupy : we shall see a thousand delights which now re- 
fresh our whole soul only by their images, — the shadows 
which they cast before them ; and, when they shall really 
come, we shall be all ready to receive them, and welcome 
them to our company like old guests. ... It is delightful 
now to imagine myself a minister, to recount the duties of 
the station, and consider all the ways of performing them, 
and the glorious satisfaction of seeing God's work prosper 
in my hand. I turn to a home, — a home of beauty, of 
affection, of love ; to a home where all noble feelings are 
cherished, and all jarring interests and strife excluded. . . . 
Calamities may fall upon that home, — they come upon all 
men ; each country has its own storms ; but, if it is built 
on the rock of holy affection, it will stand. The floods 



DIVINITY HALL. 65 

may pass over it : they can never shake its fixed founda- 
tion." 

His sermons in the Divinity School were dry and scholas- 
tic to a degree that provoked reproof from the professor, 
to Theodore's great chagrin. Their dulness was a sur- 
prise. His first public preaching in the village church 
was a disappointment. " I felt much embarrassed ; though 
perhaps it did not show forth. To say the truth, I did not 
feel the sermon as much as I usually do \ for the hour 
usually spent in preparing for the service was consumed 
in ' doing the agreeable.' May God in his mercy grant 
me power to improve in this holy duty ! May I go on from 
strength to strength, increasing continually in godliness and 
wisdom, and thus show forth pure and holy Christianity 
in my life no less than in my teachings! O God! wilt 
thou help me to become more pure in heart, more holy, and 
better able to restrain all impetuous desires and unholy 
passions ? May I ' put down every high thing ' that would 
exalt itself against the perfect law of God ! Help me, in 
the intercourse of life, to discharge my duties with a more 
Christian-like fidelity; to love thee the more, and those 
with whom I am to deal." 

" Visitation Day " was a " day of trembling." The ser- 
vices in the morning " went off " well. His own subject 
was "Gnosticism," for which he had read Neander and Mat- 
ter, and had held conversations with the professor, from 
which he came away with an unpleasant impression of the 
wise man's want of candor, not to say insight. " The 
exercises of the afternoon " dragged heavily." He was dis- 
pleased with a certain D.D., who remarked that he had no 
denominational character, but was an eclectic. " No man can 
thus set himself free from his contemporaries, and feel none 
of their influence. He may, indeed, withdraw himself from 
their meetings, and refuse to co-operate with them ; but to 
attempt to retire from all sympathy with them is silly, and 
to pretend to have done it is preposterous." 
6* 



66 THEODORE PARKER. 

His preparation at the Hall is finished. " Two years and 
three months have passed speedily and pleasantly away. 
God has prospered me in all my studies ; and I am now 
ready to go forth, but not without dread and fear. What 
an immense change has taken place in my opinions and 
feelings upon all the main points of inquiry since I entered 
this place ! 

" I ask for thy blessings, O most merciful Father ! upon 
all my labors and studies. Keep me from sin and from 
every harmful error." 



CHAPTER V. 



THE CANDIDATE. 



On leaving the Hall, Theodore allowed himself a 
short vacation ; but it was Milton's " idle vacancy " now. 
The relish for this kind of indulgence was gone. " The 
two weeks past have been spent in loitering about, idling 
away time, and living at ease ; now strolling about with 
Lydia, and now picking cherries and flowers alone. By 
the way, I have found a flower that wants a name in Dr. 
B.'s book. I have thus loitered about, doing almost 
nothing ; not profiting morally, religiously, or even intel- 
lectually, and perhaps but little in body, considering 
that I am getting bad habits of early retiring, late lying, 
and general indolence. So much for my state of repose. 
Blessed be these iron times ! — there is something 
for man to do; and, still more, something for him to 
thhik. 

" Suppose not, my dearly-beloved book, that I felt no 
pleasure in thus passing time. I am not so cold-hearted 
as to wander among the gardens of the Graces with no 
sense that riots, and no soul that thrills. Nay, my heart 
has been warmed by the sweetest — I had almost said, 
the noblest — -impulses; but it does not advance me in 
the journey of life as I would wish to move. It does 
not allow my soul to unfold its wings in this fledging- 
place and trial-ground, and prepare for the lofty and dan- 
gerous flight when it must ' sail with uplift wing ' against 

67 



68 THEODORE PARKER. 

tempest and storm. I have sterner deeds to do, greater 
dangers to dare. I must be about my work." 

It was customary for young preachers, after leaving the 
school, to try their powers in friendly pulpits of older 
men before dashing into the broad "vineyard of the 
Lord " which was waiting for reapers. Theodore made 
his first venture in the desk of his old friend Dr. Francis, 
at Watertown, on July 24, after wrestling with doubts, 
hopes, fears, for a month previous. " Not only by day, 
but in the deep watches of the night, have painful visi- 
tations come over me. Well, Heaven be praised that I 
have once preached to a real live audience, to feeling be- 
ings, and those my very friends and neighbors ! 

"I am resolved to cast forth my seed-corn into the 
ever-busy working universe, that it may bring forth as the 
Lord pleases. With him is the result, not with me." 

His themes on this occasion were, " The Necessity of 
a Heavenly Life," and " Religion a Principle and Senti- 
ment," — vital topics both, bespeaking less the bookworm 
than the prophet, and vitally treated, if we may accept the 
opinion of his hearers. The preacher says, "I have 
heard enough of compliments, which come from partial 
judges." The next Sunday he preached for Mr. Putnam in 
a large and full house, with a success that surprised those 
who had heard only of his prodigious feats of learning. 

The trials of the candidate were now upon him : he 
must carry his wares to the public market. After a brief 
experience as a peddler of gospel goods, he writes thus in 
October to his class-mate Livermore, who had been happy 
in finding an early settlement : " I rejoice that you are 
already so fortunate as to escape from the perils of candi- 
dating. I have long looked forward to this period of my 
life as one full of difficulties, unpleasantness, and dan- 
gers ; and experience has taught me — dearly enough — 
that not a tithe of the real evil was anticipated. To say 
nothing about the bodily ills which attend this nomadic 



THE CANDIDATE. 69 

life of a minister, there are intellectual evils of no com- 
mon magnitude, and difficulties in the way of true spir- 
itual culture which are truly frightful. All of us are so far 
creatures of time and space, and therefore accessible to 
pleasant sights and agreeable sounds, that we all have 
some private spot, or at least some chosen time, when the 
tide of feeling sets afresh in the heart ; when, by virtue 
of long ' use and wont,' our souls mount upward, and soar 
straight into the region of ' open vision ' without an effort. 
Now, how are we not debarred of this privilege ? We are 
actually driven, by force of circumstances, away from these 
1 fountains of living water,' and compelled to hew out for 
ourselves 'broken cisterns which hold no water.' But I 
will not weary you with a detail of those evils, which, I 
bless God, you have escaped." 

His first extended experiment was one of four weeks 
at Barnstable, a seaport town on the south side of Barn- 
stable Bay, supported mainly by fisheries and a coast 
trade. He goes down in the " neat little schooner 
' Sappho,' " on a smooth sea, with favoring wind. " Grace- 
fully the little vessel cut the wave." There were about 
twenty passengers, mostly ladies j two young people of 
rude bearing, who ate lemons and pickled limes, and who 
gave him an orange ; and three pretty girls, two of them 
sisters of the Rev. Mr. Greenwood. Their father was 
with them, — "an intelligent and agreeable old gentle- 
man," with whom he soon came to an understanding. 
There was but one cabin, which had to serve as lodge- 
ment and lounging-room, during the evening and night, 
for the whole party. " The ladies went down about half- 
past eight ; for it was cold. Soon after nine I descended, 
feet foremost, — perpendicularly almost. They had gotten 
into their several berths, and there were lying, the cur- 
tains still undrawn. I sat rather awkwardly, and chatted 
and laughed with them, who did not seem at all dis- 
turbed by the peculiarity of the scene. By and by I, too, 



70 THEODORE PARKER. 

crept into a crib, — a lady above me, another at my head, 
and a third at my feet. I had the poet's corner. All 
night there was a noise, — some getting up, others get- 
ting down ; roisterous fellows carousing ; children cry- 
ing, and mothers attempting, to quiet them. Sleep went 
up the hatch-way, but did not find good quarters, and 
so came in with me, and staid till nearly five, a.m." 

At Barnstable he has pleasant quarters at Mrs. Whit- 
man's, a lady of prepossessing appearance and manners. 
On Saturday he looks up two or three of the leading 
men, presents his credentials, and takes a view of the 
town. " The houses are generally small, — many of only 
one story, or one and a half, — are usually shingled in- 
stead of being clap-boarded, and are not always painted : 
many are still of the dark hue of the tarnished wood. 
Some are yellow ; others green or red ; a few are white. 
There are some pretty places. The road winds at a little 
distance from the shore, and the houses are built at 
irregular intervals along its sides. There is a pretty hill 
back of the house, which affords a good prospect in all 
directions." On the whole, he concludes that the town is 
not, perhaps, so well adapted as some others to a cultiva- 
tion of aesthetics, but that ethics can be well enough 
studied. Nevertheless, he tries the Muse : — 

" Day's weary portals softly close, 
And slow the sun retires ; 
And Night his dewy mantle throws 
On Earth's decaying fires. 

'Tis sweet, my love, when day is o'er, 

And hushed each jarring sound, 
To turn and think of thee once more : 

It makes my heart rebound. 

A quicker beat now fires my heart ; 
My thoughts now swifter glow " — 



THE CANDIDATE. 71 

But Barnstable is no better adapted to poetry than to aes- 
thetics ; and suddenly the enraptured strain ceases. 

He presently suspects the place to be spiritually dead. 
The people do not seem willing to talk on religious sub- 
jects. Still he hopes to do some good. The four pri- 
vate and three public schools suggest an occupation. 
He begs Miss Cabot not to hang the leaden collar of 
" Be careful and not do too much " about his neck. He 
walks eight miles a day, makes new acquaintances, and 
becomes interested in the doings and feelings of the peo- 
ple. He ascends the hill daily for a breeze and a view ; 
makes excursions to a pretty pond about four miles dis- 
tant with Mr. Drew, the schoolmaster ; goes to tea-parties 
at Capt. Bacon's and elsewhere ■ attends funerals ; and 
feels a sort of mental' crystallization going on within him. 
Slight attacks of home-sickness will visit the young minis- 
ter ; but they decrease as he gradually gets acquainted with 
the inanimate creation, — the trees, hills, rocks. He finds 
several new species of flowers ; makes a beautiful collec- 
tion of salt-crystals ; the cows and pigs afford him enter- 
tainment. The qualities of the people improve on closer 
acquaintance. He finds them not only agreeable, but 
intelligent ; and begins to think there is more religious 
feeling than he had hastily surmised. 

The open pulpit troubled him at first. The people sat 
within a table's width of his chair, and looked in upon him 
as if they would eat him up. The house was good, easy 
to speak in. He felt somewhat awkward at the beginning, 
but made an effort, and not only delivered the written 
word, but " added much that was better and more search- 
ing, extemporaneously." The people were exceedingly 
attentive, and showed their interest by coming out in the 
afternoon even better than in the morning. The best 
people called on him, — Dr. Tuck, Dr. Mack, Col. Under- 
wood, Mr. Choate, Deacon Monroe. Nobody spoke to 
him about the sermon ; but Mr. Reed — " Squire " Reed, 



72 THEODORE PARKER. 

cousin of the Hon. John Reed, Register of Probate " and 
several other things " — said to Mr. Whitman of one of his 
discourses, that it was the greatest sermon he ever heard. 
Parker had the common weakness of ministers, — that of 
thinking his best sermons the least appreciated. The 
people did not listen well to his labored discourse ; " be- 
like they did not understand it, which was my fault, not 
theirs : " but when the "preachment had little thought, and 
as little originality," they were all attention. The babes 
wanted milk. 

The Sundays were pretty full ; so were the week-days. 
There were visitings, social parties, a fishing-excursion, trips 
to Yarmouth, Hyannis, &c. Dr. Tuck took him to a meeting 
of the " Charitable and Benevolent Society," where the sub- 
ject under discussion was the abolition of capital punish- 
ment. A theological point that came up brought him to his 
feet, and he spoke in favor of the abolition. All this we 
learn from his letters to Miss Cabot, full of pleasant gossip 
about things and people, walks, talks, rambles, explorations, 
"jactations," and dejections, the whole of which we would 
copy if the limits of this biography did not forbid. 

Meeting with practical men does the young student good. 
This he confesses in a letter to his classmate Silsbee, 
dated Barnstable, Aug. 21 : — 

" How disqualified we are for contact with the real world I felt 
when first shown a real live man ; and when brought to speak 
with him I was utterly at a stand, and scarcely knew what to say. 
Thus, indeed, we come away from our three-years' studies at 
Divinity College with some little knowledge of science, literature, 
philosophy, peradventure some small inklings of theology and 
metaphysics, nay, even a little knowledge of the science of 
things in general, and with beards on our chins, but with no 
other marks of manhood. Now, I maintain, that, besides a great 
deal of knowledge, one needs as much skill to make it of any 
use to him. 

" This art of things in general I hope I have made some little 



THE CANDIDATE. 73 

advance in since I came to Barnstable. Indeed, it seems to me 
I have grown in this regard, so that I can really talk to men as 
if I were also a man, and not a student merely. A mere student 
is a sort of homu)iculus y an animal not treated by Pliny, except 
incidentally, when he speaketh of the war they once carried on 
against their arch enemies the cranes." 

The following encouraging record in the journal was set 
down about this time : — 

" It seems that I have gained much light within during the 
short stay I have now made in Barnstable : it seems as if the 
wire had touched the chaotic liquid, and crystallization had begun. 
Seasons occur in the course of one's moral and intellectual his- 
tory when the work of years seems to be effected in a few hours. 
It seems to me that Nature wears a new aspect, and life has got 
a new meaning, since I came hither. Well, if I have learned any 
duty more clearly, may Heaven be praised. therefor ! " 

A visit to a Methodist camp-meeting at Eastham inter- 
ested him. He and his companion went in a vessel, which 
was cast away on a sandy neck of land. Theodore noted 
the peculiar formation of the hills on the neck, the light- 
house, the mountain-cranberries, a glutinous kind of fish, the 
conical shape of the sand-mountains, the lines of the beach, 
the ship's regulator, and a great many other things. Arriv- 
ing at the camp-grounds, his curiosity was all alive. " One 
tent was full of negroes, who were more vehement than their 
white brethren. There was occasionally a touch upon 
slavery : who wonders at it ? . . . The women, I noticed, 
were always the most noisy. Some of them were in hyster- 
ics, I should say, and should explain it on well-known 
physiological principles. They said it was the Spirit. 
How strangely men mistake the flesh for the Spirit ! A 
twitching of the nerves is often mistaken for inspiration. 
I was much struck with the cold indifference of one 
young woman, who sat very quietly munching ginger- 
bread while all the process of ' bringing in ' was taking 



74 THEODORE PARKER. 

place around her. ... I always noticed that the 
least learned were the most violent, — had most of the 
' Spirit of the Lord,' as they said." The camp-ground 
presented a striking scene. There were sixteen large tents 
arranged in a semicircle about the pulpit, some of them 
containing more than a hundred people. The woods be- 
hind were all alive. The description, which is too long to 
copy, contains nice touches of humor, — the hideous- 
looking hay-cart ; the queer carriages, drawn by oxen or 
horses, as happened to be convenient ; old Capt. Brown, 
no stockings nor shoes on his feet, no jacket or vest, 
pantaloons rolled up to his knees, carrying one of the 
passengers on his back to the cart ; the snuff-colored 
man ; the major who had had three trades' and three 
wives, — one for each trade. The two comrades walked 
back to Barnstable, thirty miles, by the sandy road. 
■ But, great as was the social activity, the mental activity 
was even more remarkable. The dozen or so of books he 
brought with him were soon exhausted. He writes to 
Miss Cabot, " The air of the place braces my whole soul : 
I could devour a whole library in a week. I think I 
should write three new sermons a week all the time I am 
here ; but I have only enough of my- favorite paper for two 
more, and I forbear." Among the books mentioned in the 
journal as in course of reading are Ackerman's " Christ- 
liches in Plato ; " Schelling's " Lectures on Academic 
Study," which he finds fault with as being too subjective ; 
Jahn's "Vaticinia Messiana," which seemed fundamentally 
unsound in assuming the inspiration of all the writers of 
the Old Testament ; Schmidt's " Mysticismus der Mittel- 
V- alter." But the most significant thing he undertook was 
| the translation of De Wette's " Introduction to the Old 
Testament." How quietly, yet with what forebodings, he 
announces the beginning of this great task, which was 
destined to be a monument of his own industry, a test of 
his courage, and a mighty inauguration of his career ! — 



THE CANDIDATE. 



75 



"Thursday, Aug. n. — Finished another sermon on 'The 
Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.' 

"Began to translate De Wette's 'Einleitung in das Alte 
Testament.' I cannot tell what will be the result of this. 1 
shall leave that for another time to determine. Meanwhile I 
will go on translating it quietly, as I wish, without interrupting 
important studies." 

On Monday, Aug. 28, his engagement being ended, 
he took leave of his friends in Barnstable "with many 
a sigh, and certainly with many a wish that I shall soon 
return to them." They wanted him to stay longer ; but 
he declined. His books were exhausted : he was, for the 
time, satisfied with the Barnstable life ; and he longed, 
as lovers will, for the society of his heart's mistress. 

In the months of September and October his letters 
report him as enjoying the autumn scenery, and as interest- 
ing congregations in Northfield and Greenfield, — charm- 
ing towns, where, however, he would not care to reside as 
minister. We hear of him also at Portland, Lowell, 
Billerica. West Roxbury has been suggested to him, 
and Concord presents attractions. In September he 
comes across Emerson's " Nature : " criticises it, of 
course ; finds fault with its excess of idealism, but is 
delighted with the overflowing beauty and truth. " Blessed 
is the man who stoops and tastes of them ! He erects 
himself in new vigor and freshness, and becomes a man 
divine." The correspondence of this period is remarkable 
for freshness and playfulness, showing the healthiest state 
of feeling on all subjects. Read these words to his 
friend Silsbee : l ( Is not friendship one of the wells of 
the desert, where the pilgrim cools his parched lips, 
reposes for the time, and starts afresh in his life-journey ? 
Love is the well that stands by his cottage-door. It is 
there in winter : it freezes not. It is there in summer : 
the drought never makes its waters abate. It hath ever a 
pleasant flavor upon the palate, and a grateful, life-giving 



76 THEODORE PARKER. 

influence on the whole inner man. I trust you will soon 
find this healing water, and, though 'the well is deep,' 
will draw an abundant supply." 

Here is a day in Northfield : " Rose at seven ; shaved 
and dressed ; looked at the newspaper ; read the books 
of Nehemiah, Esther, Solomon's Song, first twelve chap- 
ters of Isaiah, in English ; wrote part of a sermon ; fin- 
ished a hundred and fifty pages of Allan's 'Life of 
Scott,' two of Herder's ' Brief e.' Dinner. Read in va- 
rious books ; walked two or three miles ; found a queer 
plant ; gathered about a quart of chestnuts ; noticed the 
peculiar position of some stratified rocks. Dr. Hall 
dropped in, and asked me to ride. Took tea. Mr. 
Nevers called ; staid two hours at least. Called with 
Mr. Allen at Dr. Hall's ; ascended Mr. Pomeroy's moun- 
tain." There is no mental sickness here. 

In November he is at Barnstable again for three Sun- 
days, with a plentiful supply of books and papers to 
brighten the gloomy autumnal days. The people are glad 
to see him ; his old friends are cordial ; the church fills 
up, though there is no fire in it, and no means for making 
one. Chairs have to be brought in to accommodate 
the comers. The audience is attentive as ever, listen- 
ing so eagerly, that, when a good thing is said, their faces 
look like "fires new stirred." They wanted to give him a 
" call ; " though some were doubtful, suspecting the sound- 
ness of his views. A meeting was arranged for the pur- 
pose ; but he, hearing of the intention, prevented it. " I 
wish I could divide myself, give them a part, and take 
the rest up to some other place. But one cannot give 
away half a mind any more than half a heart; and a 
church is, doubtless, as jealous as a damsel. I shall not 
let them give an invitation to me. I am no coquette among 
parishes." 

At Barnstable he receives intelligence of his father's 
death. 



THE CANDIDATE. 77 



Barnstable, Nov. ii, 1836. 

I received your letter, my dear Lydia, as I never fail to do, 
with unspeakable pleasure and satisfaction ; but if the outside 
gave me pleasure, and the inside told me what I had long 
expected, yet I cannot deny that the intelligence found me 
unprepared. I have, as you know, long expected the death of 
him who is now no more ; yet I had fondly put off the day of 
his departure : and, when the event was told me, my grief and 
sorrow were tenfold greater than I had expected. One never 
knows when his armor is strong enough for the conflict. We 
know that our friends must die, and join the companions of 
their youth. If they are old, we think that it may come soon ; 
and, if they are feeble and sick at the same time, we fear that 
we must soon wend on our pilgrimage without their kindly aid. 
All this compels us to prepare ; but, when the dreaded event 
actually takes place, all our resolutions, our expected resigna- 
tion, and our imagined strength, disappear like frost-work in 
the sun. I do not mourn for my father's sake, but for my own. 
He goes to meet his friends, to see again his wife, his fathers, 
and his children : no doubt it is a pleasant meeting. They may 
pity his long delay on the earth, and rejoice now that he has put 
off the mortal to put on the immortal. 

After I read your letter, and sat silent and lonely by my own 
fire, I could almost see his fathers of other days, the wife of his 
youth, and his children and long-separated friends, pressing 
gloriously around him to press him once more to their hearts. 
Their shout and song of welcome still ring in my ears. But, 
as I said, I lament not for him : he has no sigh to stifle, no tear 
to wipe away. But how can I, who have been cradled in his 
arms, fed by his hands, blessed by his prayers, and moulded by 
his tender care, — how can I forbear lamenting, now he's 
gone ? 

But enough of this. We shall yet meet ; and I will no 
longer weary your soul with the bitterness of mine. He has 
gone ! let us say no more about it. And now I entreat you to 
say nothing upon that subject in your letters, nor when we meet. 
A thousand circumstances will bring it all up before me again 
and again. Do not let us multiply them without need, nor 
foolishly turn away from them when they occur naturally : for 
7* 



78 THEODORE PARKER. 

the valley of tears, when dwelt in, hath a poisonous influence 
on the soul ; but, if only occasionally passed through, it is full 
of " healing waters," and fountains of strength. 

The journal of the 8th of November contains touching 
reflections on the same event, and pictures the scene of the 
re-union in the other world. As often as the anniversary 
came round, it was tenderly remembered. Years did not 
weaken the sentiments of gratitude he cherished for his 
father. In heavy and dark days, when the battle raged 
about him, and friends fell off, and his heart trembled, 
the record is passionate with feeling: the strong man 
seems to stretch out his arms to the revered shade, and 
to hide his face in the consoling bosom. Something of 
the same emotion was excited by the recollection of any 
of his kindred, — brothers and sisters whom he had 
scarcely known, uncles ancl cousins whom he had hardly 
more than heard of. The power of the root is strong in 
him : the ancestral fibre never loses its hold. He had a 
plan of exploring in England the remotest nooks of 
family association, and of placing some memorial on the 
grave of every ancestor in America. They were blood of 
his blood : it was a pride for him to remember that he was 
blood of theirs. 

It is interesting to note that already, away off at the 
Cape, the young war-horse smells the coming battle afar. 
Mr. George Ripley had written an article on Martineau's 
"Rationale of Religious Inquiry," in "The Christian Ex- 
aminer," that had roused the ire of an eminent ex-professor 
in the Divinity School at Cambridge ; and the ex-professor 
had replied in " The Boston Daily Advertiser," rebuking the 
bold young writer in imperious terms. The reviewer re- 
plied the very next day. Theodore speaks his mind in a 
letter thus : — 

" This coming out in the print, and denouncing the writer of 
an article which appeared soberly and unostentatiously in a peri- 



THE CANDIDATE. 79 

odical with which Mr. N. had nothing to do, is ridiculous. 
A man writes something which differs a little from what Prof. 
N. believes, and, forsooth, he must come out 'with his sign 
manual,' and tell the good people of the land he does not think 
so ! What if he does not ? Is he the people ? Will all truth 
perish with him t . . . 

" The last time I saw Mr. R., I suggested that the first one 
who lifted a hand in this work would have to suffer ; and I 
wished to push some old veteran German to the fore-front of 
the battle, who would not care for a few blows : but he thought 
there was no danger." 

This was the first gun in a long battle. 

The only incident set down in the list of events during 
this dismal month of November is a visit to an Indian 
settlement about twelve miles from the town. The pov- 
erty, squalor, smoke, and stench of the only real wigwam 
of the settlement, the talk of the old squaw, need not be 
detailed. The poor hag had seen trouble ; she said her 
children were dead : " But she had found the only comfort 
which the savage receives from the white man : it peered 
out from under a bench in the shape of 2, jug of gin /" The 
quick glance of the future reformer detects the yet covered 
path his manly foot is to tread. 

The last month of the year was spent in Salem with the 
family of his classmate Silsbee. He filled the pulpit of the 
" East Church," though not as a candidate. The cultured 
and friendly old town offered him its choicest hospitalities. 
The Silsbee family was large in more senses than one. 
The brightest and most amiable of women and the hearti- 
est of men were members of it in near or remote connec- 
tion ; and their social circle embraced the elegance, wit, 
and brilliancy of the city. Parker saw the best people, 
and " did more talking than the whole family of the patri- 
archs during their apocryphal journey over the waters of 
the flood." Miss Burley lived there with her sparkling 
and beautiful nieces, — ready for all conversation, and very 



8o THEODORE PARKER. 

delightful in literary talk. — Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Howes 
also, and his classmate Samuel P. Andrews. 

" I have been as happy as Adam was before he was turned 
out of paradise ; nay, I mean that I was much happier. . . . 
By the way, woman is often abused by modern writers because 
good Mother Eve did not throw die apple in the serpent's face, 
instead of being wheedled into eating it. But, if it had been 
offered to her precious spouse, he would not have stood there 
shall- 1 -shall- 1 -ing, but would merely have said, 'Apples, indeed! 
so early ! thank ye, Mister Snake ! ' and would have eaten it 
without thinking of conscience. Now, the sons of this biped 
pique themselves upon being men, not women ! 

" Kings say they reign by divine right, and impiously stamp 
1 Rex, Dei gratia,' upon innocent copper : but woman is the only 
monarch that can justly use these words, and she may, — 'I am a 
woman by the grace of GodS She alone rules by divine right" 

The mental exercise was as vigorous and various as ever. 
There are schemes of lectures on Heine, Spenser, the 
Use of Nature ; Notes on Public Instruction among the 
Romans : a Study on English State-Trials : a Careful List 
of Public Documents in England j an Account of the Dif- 
ferent Rolls from the Earliest Time ; Dates of the Dooms- 
day Book, and Memoranda of the Libraries where such 
Antiquities are stored ; Summaries of Statistics in regard 
to the Social Condition of Germany ; Births and Deaths in 
Prussia ; Number of Pupils in the Universities ; Longevity 
of the Professors ; Proportion of Soldiers to the Popula- 
tion in Europe ; Pay of Officers \ and so forth. Damiron's 
" Cours de Philosophic " shares with "Jacob Faithful " the 
leisure hours. He transcribes into the journal a number 
of Latin monkish hymns ; apothegms and parables have 
their place also. His fun overflows in a ponderous squib, — 
" History and Spirit of Coxcombry or Puppyism, in its Origin 
and Development ; from the Night-Book of Gottesgute von 
Thiergarten."' The subject is laid out in divisions, — Pup- 
pyism in the Pulpit, Puppyism of the Press, Puppyism o£ 



THE CANDIDATE. 81 

i the Parlor j and through all this flows the uneasy stream 
of verse, not clearing itself, alas ! as it flows. 

Studies in theology go ominously on. The origin and 
composition of the Pentateuch is under consideration. 
To this date belongs the following schedule of labors to 
be undertaken : — 

I. Sundry questions in theology : — 

i. What is the extent of known supernatural revelation 
made to man ? 

2. What is the foundation of the authority of Jesus Christ ? 

3. What is the meaning of faith in Old and New Testament ? 

4. How is Christ more a Saviour than Socrates ? 

5. Why did the world need a Saviour ? 

6. What has been his influence ? 

7. Is Christianity to be a universal religion ? 

8. What is the foundation of religion in man ? the design 

of miracles ? the pretence of them in other religions ? 

II. Questions in Scriptural criticism and exegesis : — 

1. The authenticity of the beginning of the Gospels of 

Matthew and Luke. The miraculous conception. 

2. The resurrection : why was the body of Christ raised ? 

why " carried up " ? How is the resurrection of matter 
proof of the immortality of spirit ? Is not the material 
resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ unspiritualiz- 
ing? 

The questions in theology are preceded by questions in 
ethics, less systematically drawn up, but suggestive of his 
moral drift : — 

1. The connection between the understanding and the will. 

2. Foundation of the idea of duty. 

3. Foundation of the idea of God. 

4. The limits of duty. 

5. Subjective consequences of doing or of omitting duty. 

6. Liberty and necessity. 

7. Why is man placed in life ? 

8. How great is the difference in the value of the various means 

afforded to attain the end of life ? What state best fitted 



82 THEODORE PARKER. 

thereto ? Are outward means of any avail ? How much ? 
(Compare the condition of a Carolinian slave and the son 
of a Boston merchant, or a New-Zealander with a citizen of 
Massachusetts.) 

In close connection with these questions are noble 
thoughts from Plato, and devout prayers for help to lead a 
consecrated life : — 

" Give me an understanding heart ; let me not only know, but 
feel, that my duty, my nature, my destination, demand continued 
labor and earnest action. 

" Give me rest for my soul. Help me to control impetuous 
passions, to rule my own spirit, to attain a sublime command 
over all appetite and desire, bringing every thought into subjec- 
tion to the law of my being." 

The cast of Mr. Parker's religious philosophy comes 
out in a letter to his friend S. P. Andrews, written Jan. 3, 
1837, from Northfield, where we find him preaching : — 

" Bowen has written a piece in ' The Examiner ' on what think 
you ? Why, on Emerson's ' Nature.' Pelion upon Ossa is bad ; 
Jew upon Bacon : but Bowen upon ' Nature ' caps the climax. 
He has given transcendentalism i sick a lick,'' that it is almost 
dead. Kant, Fichte, and Schelling appeared to me in a vision of 
the night, and deplored their sad estate. ' Transcendentalism is 
clean gone,' said Kant. ' Verdammt ! ' said Fichte. ' What 
shall we do ? ' exclaimed Schelling. They could not be ap- 
peased." 

In February he is at Greenfield, the birthplace of his 
friend George Ripley. An accident (he was thrown from 
a sleigh, and had a narrow escape from serious hurt) dis- 
abled him with cold and headache much of the time ; but 
his letters are charming specimens of intelligent prattle 
about people and scenery. The air inspires him ; the cool 
wind from the north braces his frame ; and the sight of 
mountains and great trees and wide meadows refreshes the 
inner man not a little. The aspect of Nature in winter is 



THE CANDIDATE. 83 

a delight to him : " In the country there is a tale in every- 
thing ; and every little object in Nature hath its beauty to 
please by, and its moral to instruct with. Indeed, the coun- 
try is a great ' system of divinity ; ' while the city is but a com- 
mercial dictionary, a ' ready-reckoner,' or a ' cook-book.' 
A single walk along the banks of the Connecticut or among 
the hills, or a moment's listening to the kine's soft music, 
has taught me more than Mr. Emerson and all the Boston 
Association of Ministers." The parish is not, on the 
whole, attractive : the services are held in a court-room, 
and the spirit of the place is not congenial with his. 
There were then only about two thousand people in the 
town, and there were five societies, — a sign of sectarian 
activity and religious lethargy that was not encouraging. 
There were agreeable features about the place ; and he felt 
that he might go farther, and fare worse : but his heart was 
not drawn to it. The prospect of other places was more 
tempting. But for his desire to be married, he would have 
preferred remaining unsettled a year longer to staying in 
Greenfield, remote from the active centres of thought. 
The smallness of the salary did not repel him : he was 
used to poverty, and was willing to accept it on the bidding 
of duty. But as long as other men could satisfy the peo- 
ple as well as he could, or better, and one who was already 
spoken of was comparatively indifferent to salary, he 
turned his face elsewhere. 

The fact is, he was becoming weary of the candidate's 
aimless life, in which no seed was watered, no field tilled, 
no harvest reaped. He wanted continuous, energetic work. 
As far back as the previous October, he had said to an 
intimate friend who had misgivings in regard to the minis- 
try, " I should have been much less surprised at finding 
self-doubt in my own bosom, for I have still much ' unre- 
claimed blood ; ' and though I love the ministry of Chris- 
tianity with all my heart and mind, yet I have an affection 
for silent vigils, and there is a pulse in my heart that some- 



84 THEODORE PARKER. 

times beats wildly for the stir and noise and tumult and 
dust of the literary course." On the 15th of February he 
writes to the same correspondent, Mr. S. P. Andrews, — 

" Sometimes, Samuel, I fear lest I have missed it capitally in 
becoming a minister ; that as a lawyer, in other departments of 
thought and action, I might have been more useful, and, at the 
same time, free from a certain restraining bond (invisible, but 
strong as Fate) with which convention has tied up every minis- 
ter withal. I do not ever think of deserting a ministry which 
would dignify angels, and has been honored by the Son of God 
himself. No : I never think of that ; for I deem it writ down 
in my duty to preach the gospel, come of it what will. And 
although some of my dearest expectations have been disap- 
pointed, still I shall ' bear up, and steer with upright wing right 
onward, nor bate one jot of heart or hope.' Yet sometimes the 
thought comes mightily upon me, ' Thou hast mistaken thy 
calling.' Yet think I still there is no employment so noble on 
the earth as the faithful attempt to give a loftier action to hu- 
manity, to make men unfold the natures God has given them, 
and to lead them to be whole men, with no part wanting, and 
not merely miserable halves and quarters of men, as they 
mostly are, cultivating only a part, and that the meanest part, 
of their natures. It sometimes makes my heart bleed to think 
of the men whom the world calls 'happy 'and 'great,' but 
whom I call miserable and little, so much so as never to have 
suspected their misery and littleness. Now, if I could remove 
this frightful state of things, and show men wherein true 
strength lies, and divert them from bubble-hunting all their days, 
then gladly would I labor, spending and being spent. But 
when I consider how vast are the obstacles to be removed, how 
deeply rooted is the evil, how strongly supported by men's 
most active principles, and how hotly it is encouraged by the 
force of the senses and the wild intoxication of gold and ambi- 
tion, and that to all this I can only oppose the ' foolishness of 
preaching,' rendered still more 'foolish' by the foolishness of 
the preacher himself, by his consciousness of ignorance, of sin- 
fulness, and of weakness, I think the attempt almost a mad 
one. It is an attempt to try to beat down Gibraltar by throwing 
figs at it. Now, it is mathematically demonstrable that the rock 



THE CANDIDATE. 85 

might be beat down by throwing figs ; for a force infinitely 
small, when put forth for an infinite time, will overthrow any- 
finite obstacle, be it never so big : but who would attempt such 
a work ? One sole thing encourages me; to wit, I know that 
one who keeps God's * law of the Spirit of Life,' and puts 
forth his might manfully in obedience thereto, be his might 
never so little, — be it less than mine even, — has for his friend 
and ally and co-worker the entire almightiness and perfect vir- 
tue of God as much as he who obeys the laws of matter 
brings the whole weight of the earth to bear upon his wheel or 
lever : and in such a cause, with such a coadjutor, it is nobler 
to be conquered, dragged at the wheels of the enemy, yea, trod- 
den to dust by his followers, who shout aloud, ' Great is Mam- 
mon of the Yankees ! ' than to engage in any other warfare. 
Therefore I shall go on. Consequences I have nothing to do 
with : they belong to God. He will take care of all consequences. 
To me belongs only duty. Come what will come, I shall do it. 



Wherever Mr. Parker preached, he was received 
gladly : in most places he was invited to stay. This was 
the case at Waltham and Concord and Leominster ; but 
the attractions of West Roxbury gradually prevailed 
over the rest. It was a quiet country place ; the salary 
was meagre, — six hundred dollars ; the society was small, 
and composed, for the most part, of plain people : but 
the town was near Boston and Cambridge, and it prom- 
ised leisure for work he had set his heart on. Mr. Fran- 
cis at Watertown, and Mr. Stetson at Medford, were not 
far off. The position was suggested to him four or five 
months before this. He had preached there several 
times ; and when the invitation came, on May 23, it 
was accepted. He was anxious for a seat of activity, 
and full of schemes for the execution of which unin- 
terrupted days and nights were needed. The trans- 
lation of De Wette's " Einleitung in die Biicher des Altes ] 
Testaments " was finished on the 20th of May. It must 
be diligently revised ; notes from various writers are to be 
8 



86 THEODORE PARKER. 

added, essays and dissertations to be appended : it will be 
a work of years yet. He must have a home, — a home at 
once. How eagerly he longed for it, how glowingly his 
heart dwelt on it, these extracts from letters tell : — 

To S. P. Andrews. 

Salem, March 16, 1837. 

. . . With regard to my marriage and the " happy day," 
thereof I can only say that probably matters will be brought 
to a crisis about the 20th of next month. With regard to my 
feelings in approaching that moment, you may imagine them. 
They are not homogeneous, but of a widely different and vari- 
ous character. Sometimes the fear predominates ; but usually 
hope rules the balance. I look to matrimony as the completion 
of man. One cannot be a whole man until married, but a pitiful 
fraction thereof merely, a manikin. I look forward to marriage 
with reverence. 

I promise myself much happiness. How soon my hope will 
be destroyed no one can say. From the character (both of 
mind and heart) of Miss C. I have every thing to hope, and 
nothing to fear. 

To the Same. 

Boston, April 13. 

. . . The tree of life still stands in paradise, though Adam 
and Eve be cast out, and Cain murders Abel. So sometimes 
I console my spirit when I deem that all my present felicity 
may in a moment turn into dust, bitter dust, or at least vanish 
like the momentary rainbow. So, indeed, it may be. Sad pre- 
sentiments sometimes spread their shadows over my path ; but 
I know that two souls made one by love, and realizi?ig that 
union, can laugh at time and space, and live united forever. 
Besides, Death is only a kind angel with severe countenance, 
who comes to bless, though with sighs and tears. . . . 

The above was written three days after his marriage. 
The journal celebrates the wedding-day with exuberant 
verse and tender prayer, accompanied by a " Codex Matri- 
monianus " in Latin, which is inserted here, Englished, 
to show with what conscientious feeling he entered on 
the relation which so many assume lightly : — 



THE CANDIDATE. 87 

" Since, by the will of God, a wife is to be given me, it is 
becoming that I prescribe for myself rules and laws. There- 
fore, by God's help, I here resolve, promise, and bind myself 
steadfastly to observe the following regulations : — 

1. Never, except for the best of causes, to oppose my wife's 

will. 

2. To discharge all services, for her sake, freely. 

3. Never to scold. 

4. Never to look cross at her. 

5. Never to weary her with commands. 

6. To promote her piety. 

7. To bear her burdens. 

8. To overlook her foibles. 

9. To love, cherish, and ever defend her. 

10. To remember her always most affectionately in my pray- 
ers : thus, God willing, we shall be blessed. 
"April xx., MDCCCXXXVII." 

The ordination took place June 21, 1837. Mr. Francis 
preached the sermon ; the prayers were by Chandler 
Robbins, Mr. Cunningham, and Henry Ware ; the charge 
by Caleb Stetson ; the right hand of fellowship by George 
Ripley. John Pierpont and John S. Dwight wrote hymns 
for the occasion. Dr. Francis warned the young man not 
to neglect his studies. Henry Ware prayed, " May his 
fondness for peculiar studies never divert him from doing 
Thy work ! " Both admonitions he resolved to heed. 



CHAPTER VI. 



WEST ROXBURY. 



Mr. Parker's situation at "Spring Street" — for so the 
place was called — is best described in a few extracts from 
letters to his classmate Silsbee : " We have a clever house, 
a fine garden, a good horse. I am at the head of a family 
of seven souls, i to be, to do, and to suffer ' for them all : 
no little care. I have become as practical as Stebbins's 
ideal man ; always carry a rule and compass in my pocket ; 
all my ' talk is of bullocks,' pigs, grapes, strawberries, and 
other things which perish in the using. . . . Our neighbors 
are pleasant : about fifty or sixty families are in the parish ; 
one hundred to one hundred and fifty worshippers ; the 
people good, quiet, sober, church-going, — capital listeners, 
none better ; so much so, that I tell my friends I think my 
parishioners are as much blessed in preaching as those of 
even Dr. Channing : for what is wanting in preaching they 
make up in listening ; which is not the case with the doc- 
tor's people, they depending altogether on him. The Sunday 
school grows under my hand ; and once in two weeks I 
have a teacher's meeting, whereat I explain Bible, which is 
far better for me and them than all preachment : for I aim 
at the heart and conscience not less directly than when in 
the pulpit ; and, since there is no formality, the matter 
goes home, I trust. I preach abundant heresies, and they 
all go down ; for the listeners do not know how heretical 
they are. Nay, I preach the worst of all things, — tran- 
88 



WEST ROXBURY. 89 

scendentalism, the grand heresy itself, — none calling me 
to account therefor, but men's faces looking like fires 
new stirred thereat." Besides this, pastoral visits, which 
were no ceremonial thing with Mr. Parker ; visitations of 
schools, always a deep concern ; professional duties, bap- 
tisms, funerals, and the like, — justify him in calling him- 
self a busy man. The reading goes on as usual. The 
De Wette is progressing ; Jacobi, Henry More, the Life of 
Apollonius of Tyana, Bulwer's " Athens," Fichte, Coleridge, 
Descartes, are in exercise during midsummer. Spinoza, 
Gesenius, Ovid, Seneca, are in prospect. There is read- 
ing in Homer almost every day. An engagement is made 
to translate Amnion's " Fortbildung des Christenthums," 
four volumes octavo : this in July, a month after ordi- 
nation ! " Old studies prosper, — metaphysics, theology, 
criticism : all that used so much to delight and instruct us 
flourishes and grows apace in my new situation. Thoughts 
high as heaven and profound as the centre of the earth 
sometimes visit me in my loneliness. Then, too, the smiles 
• of love cheer and encourage me." 

Of special value was the society he found at West Rox- 
bury, — a small but choice circle of elegant, graceful, cul- 
tivated people, used to wealth, accomplished in the arts of 
life, of open hearts, and, better still, of humane instincts, 
who lived in such near neighborhood, that a path from Mr. 
Parker's gate led directly to their gardens and welcoming 
doors. The fine grounds of Mr. George R. Russell lay 
adjacent to his own modest domain ; and adjoining those 
again was the estate of Mr. Francis G. Shaw. In both 
families he was at home on the heartiest terms. All there 
were his friends, faithful and sympathetic. To be with 
them was always delightful and refreshing ; for they had 
literature and art, an intelligent interest in public affairs, a 
high tone of sentiment, and that rich flavor of character 
which distinguishes people well bred. It was a new 
world for Theodore, born and bred in poverty, inured 



90 THEODORE PARKER. 

to toil, conversant with few persons to whom the world 
brought bloom and aroma. These were idyllic days, — 
golden hours spent on lawns, or under verandas, or in the 
sweet-scented hay-fields, with youth and beauty and wit, and 
literary enthusiasm, and social merriment. Discussions of 
the newest book, the last poem, lecture, speech, the fresh- 
est speculation, did not take him from study, but relieved 
the pressure thereof by entertaining the jaded mind. 

The neighboring farms had dear and intimate friends, 
whom he neglected no opportunity of seeing : old friends 
were never forgotten ; new ones were continually added. 
His heart had room for as many as could feast in it ; and 
his hospitality was as big as his heart. The " prophet's 
chamber " usually held a guest, whose stay was encouraged ; 
the pleasant study, with flowers looking in at the windows 
in summer, and the sunlight streaming through the glass in 
winter, had room for friends as well as for folios, and re- 
sounded with the noise of laughter many times when 
Cranch, with the power of a skilful caricaturist, put Theo- 
dore's grotesque fancies on paper, or Francis greeted with 
loud mirth the fantastical descriptions of some brother- 
minister from the host's rollicking mind. The fun was 
exuberant to wildness, but hurt nobody : it was the irre- 
pressible overflow of a nature that could not contain its 
glee. It had even its earnest, its pathetic side, — the 
humanity of humor. If there was any thing that Parker 
enjoyed, it was " taking off " pretenders ; but such laughter 
was near akin to tears. He had a quick eye for qualities. 
Beauty and joy interested him ; but goodness interested 
him more. " Opposite my house," the journal says, "lives 
a poor woman. Her husband labors on a farm at a short 
distance from his home, and receives wages. They have 
five children, the oldest probably not more than ten years 
old. The family is entirely dependent on the earnings of 
the husband. A strange family came into the village, — a 
Mr. Wallace, with his wife and two small children. They 



WEST ROXBURY. 91 

were still poorer than the first ; and, to add to their dis- 
tress, Mrs. Wallace was sick with a pulmonary consump- 
tion, and ' very low,' as we say in the country. Now, this good 
woman finds out Mrs. Wallace, sees her condition, pities 
her sufferings, and goes to help her. She takes home the 
little child, lest it disturb the mother by its cries ; carries 
home the soiled linen, washes and irons it. She sits with 

her by day and night. Mrs. , the wife of my orthodox 

brother, came in to visit her, prayed with her, and fright- 
ened the sick woman badly by telling her her time was 
short j asking her if she ever read her Bible, &c. It made 
her almost insane for two days. When she slept, a weight 
seemed to oppress her head : she saw frightful visions, 
pined for her child, and has been rapidly growing worse. 
I make no comment." 

The absorbing study of this period was the literature of 
the Bible. The Egyptian and Phoenician alphabets have 
attractions for him ; ancient inscriptions and coins, Car- 
thaginian, Persian, amuse him ; the Orphic poems have a 
share of his time ; Meiner's book " On the Doctrine of the 
One God," Staiidlin " On the Morality of the Drama," fall 
under his notice : but the Bible literature leads all the 
rest. The works of Paulus, a great name in rationalistic \ 
interpretation, and of G. L. Bauer, who wrote on the | 
" Mythology of the Old and New Testaments," are on his ' 
table. Mr. George Ripley, one of the earliest students of 
the new German criticism and philosophy, live of mind \ 
and warm of heart, lent him Eichhorn's " Urgeschichte," ' 
and a great many volumes of rationalism besides. Schlei- 
ermacher's essay on Luke was one of the most suggestive 
of these. The famous work of Strauss, the " Leben Jesu," 
he was already acquainted with. The journal mentions 
at some length a fragment of a work in Greek on " things 
incredible," written by one Palaephatus. It was an 
attempt to resolve the Greek mythological stories into 
ordinary transactions : as, for example, the horses of 



92 THEODORE PARKER. 

Diomedes devouring their master signifies the expense of 
cultivating horses, which eat up the substance of the 
people j Lynceus' piercing sight into and through the 
ground referred to the discovery of the use of 
metals ; the bull that carried off Europa was a Cretan 
named Taurus ; the hydra that Hercules attacked was 
a town defended by fifty archers ; Niobe's loss of her 
daughters, and erection of a statue to their memory, sug- 
gested the fable of the weeping marble • Scylla was a 
swift piratical craft that infested the sea about Sicily. " I 
have been a good deal amused, and perhaps instructed, 
by the book. How the priests must have exclaimed 
against the ' impious ' book on the day of its appearance ! 
Such books do good. I wish some wise man would now 
write a book on ' things incredible,' or ' vulgar errors,' 
and show up the absurdity of certain things commonly 
believed on the authority of old Jews : to be plain, I 
mean the Old-Testament miracles, prophecies, dreams, 
miraculous births, &c." 

But the student did not jump hastily at conclusions : 
he read carefully, and pondered long, feeling his way 
step by step. He detected the shortcomings of Strauss's 
mythical theory, and exposed the feebleness of Paulus's 
common-sense explanations. " There is one objection to 
the assumption of myths in the New Testament ; viz., they 
belong to unhistorical times. Some think myths may 
exist even in a literary people. For a long time, there 
was no written account of Jesus Christ: tradition en- 
larged in the Jewish style ; hence much was added to the 
New Testament. We are not to suppose men sit gravely 
down, saying, ' Come, let us make us a myth : ' they were 
formed gradually. Some suppose there are only philosoph- 
ical myths in the New Testament ; others, only historical. 
Schleiermacher calls the history of the temptation a 
parable. Bauer thinks there are myths in the New Tes- 
tament coming from the Old Testament : such are some 



WEST ROXBURY. 



93 



of the stories of the youth of Jesus, angels coming to 
him, &c. Yet no man can justly believe in myths in the 
New Testament who does not deny the fact that it was 
written by contemporaries or eye-witnesses." All of 
which shows an undecided mind, and indicates, more- 
over, that his interest in such questions was, thus far at 
least, rather literary than professional. The serious bent 
of Mr. Parker's mind was practical. Matters of exege- 
sis did not stir his blood unless they were associated 
with issues which affected human relations : then they 
became watch-words and battle-cries. This time had not 
come ; and he read, re-read, considered, commented, in a 
scholar's temper, with a serene mind. Such studies did 
not even occupy his thoughts to the exclusion of others 
of a directly opposite kind. In the very thick of them 
we come across statistical tables of population and com- 
merce in Massachusetts. Two pages of the folio journal 
are devoted to a well-considered estimate of the com- 
parative advantages and disadvantages of banks ! Com- 
pare several of his schemes of work : — 

THINGS TO BE DONE THIS WEEK. 

1. Finish two sermons. 

2. De Wette. 

3. Jacobi. 

4. Fichte (Ethik). 

5. Duty vs. inclination. 

6. Commence the account of Moses. 

7. Begin the translation of Ammon's. " Fortbildung Christen- 

thums." 

WORK TO BE DONE THIS WEEK. 

1. Plant the other side of the brook. 

2. Sow the garden-vegetables. 

3. Plough the new land. 

4. Plant the old alleys. 

5. Visit Mr. Keith and Chapin in evening. 



94 TBkOD ORE PARKER. 

6. See abo i ol. 

7. Get the benches foi ocry. 

8. Ask Mr. Ell •jerintendent. 

Here is work laid out for a month : — 

1. Continue the translation of Ammon. 

2. Continue the study of Plato. 

3. Read Tasso and Dante. 

4. Iliad. 

5. Greek Tragedies. 

6. Aristophanes. 

7. Goethe's Memoirs. 

The work of a year is projected with the same delib- 
eration : — 

1. Finish the translation of Ammon ; and publish, if possible. 

2. De Wette. 

3. Course of study on the New Testament. 

4. Course of study on the Old Testament. 

5. Progress in Syriac. 

6. Danish and Swedish. 

7. Finish Plato. 

8. Continue the study of Greek writers. 

9. Dante and Tasso. 

10. Spanish Ballads. 

11. Commence the ideal work. 

Such a man as this is certainly in no danger of becom- 
ing a "man of one idea." 

The tide of life with him seems to be at its flood in the 
summer and autumn of 1837. Early in the winter, vapors 
gather in the sky ; though from what cause is not appar- 
ent. Writing to his friend Andrews in December, he 
says, " You stated, in that little bit of paper which you 
call a letter, that you detected something in my bearing 
which argued that there was unhappiness, at least dis- 



WEST ROXBURY. 95 

content of some sort, in the wind. I admit its existence 
in a greater extent than you imagine ; but of the cause, 
not a word 7 Let rumor tell you : I snail not, — not even 
to you. You may think I talk lightly : so I do now ; but 
there are times when I feel heavily. I always knew that 
I had trouble enough in store \ but I never thought it 
would come in the present shape." About a month later, 
he puts down the following in the private journal : " I 
have lost many things ; but the greatest was hope. Days 
thero have been when I saw nought else to freshen my 
eye, weary with looking over the dull waste of my early 
life. Tired with labors, I have laid down my books 
beside me, the lamp at summer midnight burning low, 
all else silent in sleep. Hope visited me. She sat beside 
me ; trimmed my lamp. In her sublime presence I grew 
calm, composed myself to her majestic features. 

"Years have passed over me: Hope never deserted 
me. Now where is she ? She is not all gone. I see 
her, but not on the earth : she is above. She shall 
never again fade out of my sight ; for she stands on the 
Rock of ages. 

" I often ask myself what I am doing with my one 
talent ; and can only reply, that I deem myself well-nigh 
wasting it, — preaching to an audience of seventy to a 
hundred and twenty souls ; going about talking tattle 
with old women ; giving good advice to hypocrites ; and 
scattering here and there, I hope, a corn that will one 
day germinate and bear fruit. Oh, could I be satisfied 
that I am doing even this last ! If I deemed it cer- 
tain that any word of mine would ever waken the deep 
inner life of another soul, I should bless God that I am 
alive and speaking. But I will trust. I am sometimes 
praised for my sermons. I wish men knew how cold 
those sleek speeches are. I would rather see one man 
practising one of my sermons than hear all men praise 
them." After a visit from Dr. and Mrs. Francis in the 



/ 



96 THEODORE PARKER. 

summer of 1838, he takes himself to task again. "I 
have not been in so good spirits as usual to-day: in- 
deed, for a whole fortnight, and that in the most beauti- 
ful season of the year, I have been as good as dead." 
But nothing of this despondency appears in his letters. 
They ^re full, fresh, and joyous, without exception, 
abounding in expressions of sympathy with his friends, 
and/showering merriment on all the incidents that occur. 
Th/e exhaustion was temporary. The most incidental 
contact with a cordial fellow-creature revived him. In- 
tellectual intercourse was delightful ; but human inter- 
course was dearer. The hunger of his heart was even 
more eager than the thirst of his mind. In writing to his 
intimate friends, he puts them in his debt all the time, 
not only by the number, but by the length and ful- 
ness of his letters, which crowd big sheets of paper 
with the outpouring of his mind. 

There was in Boston an informal association, or club, 
which met at irregular intervals, generally in the rooms 

I of Mr. Jonathan Phillips, to discuss the living questions 
of the day, whether religious, political, social, or philo- 

. sophical. Dr. Channing often came in. George Ripley, 
\ Charles Follen, Bronson Alcott, Frederic H. Hedge, 
Wendell Phillips, and others eminent in the world of 
thought, appeared with more or less regularity. The 
journal has notes of meetings at which Mr. Parker was 
present. They are interesting on many accounts. 

"Thursday, Feb. 8, 1838. — Went at evening to Mr. Phil- 
lips's room at the Tremont House to attend a meeting of the 
1 Friends.' This is my third meeting with them. The first even- 
ing, the question of the progress of civilization was discussed with 
great power of thought and richness of eloquence, especially on the 
part of Dr. Channing and Mr. Ripley. The conclusion in which 
all rested was this : ' That a real vital progress had been made by 
society since the creation, especially since the time of Jesus Christ ; 
but that certain disadvantages attended this progress : actions 



WEST ROXBURY. 97 

passed at an unreal value ; vanity, love of show, — in short, all 
forms of selfishness, — were more common than in other days.' 
This was a Socratic meeting. Dr. C. is the Socrates. Had the 
conversation of this evening been written out by Plato, it would 
equal any of his beautiful dialogues. 

" The next Wednesday we spoke upon Mr. Emerson's lecture ; 
and this led to a discussion of the personality of God. It was 
thought Mr. E.'s doctrines were dangerous ; that he denied the 
personality, which is, practically speaking, to deny the existence, 
of the Deity. Mr. Ripley accused him of maintaining that God 
was only an idea formed in the mind of the individual, and then 
projected into omnipresence. . It is the idea of power, love, &c, 
without any substance to which these attributes belong. I take 
it, Mr. E. merely denies the materiality of God : though some of 
his expressions, if taken singly, would almost justify the con- 
struction Mr. R. puts upon them. Another charge was that of 
pantheism ; a charge so vague, that every thinking man is liable 
to it. Certainly one expression of his is on the high road to 
pantheism : ' The universe, being perfectly beautiful, exists by 
its own laws, and needs no outward cause.' But this sentence 
occurred in a connection which belied such construction. 

[" Touching the personality of God, what do we mean by the 
term ? Personality cannot exist without will. Suffer all my fac- 
ulties to remain as they are, but annihilate the will, I am no 
longer a person, an individual : I cannot say ' I : ' a fagot of 
powers has taken the place of I. There are attributes, but no 
substance to which they belong. How, then, can I conceive of 
God without personality ? But is will the only essential of per- 
sonality ? The question is difficult. I conceive of God as a 
being easy of access, full of tenderness, whose character is 
summed up in one word, — Father. Now, the idea of God's will 
unites all these attributes into a being. Here, then, are the attri- 
butes of God united with a substance, — the will. What is the 
essence of God ? I know not what is the essence of myself : I 
cannot tell. The idea of God is no more mysterious than that 
of self : that of the divine personality is as clear as that of 
human personality. Men have always perplexed themselves in 
meditating on this subject. They have come to this conclusion : 
\ He is past finding out.' This is variously expressed by the 
thinkers of different ages and countries. ' Search not after the 
9 



98 THEODORE PARKER. 

essence of God and his laws/ says the old Veda. God is ' Unre- 
vealed Light/ ' the Ineffable,' ' Incomprehensible,' the ' Primal 
Being,' say the Gnostics. ' The most real of all beings,' says 
Plato, ' himself without being.' So the mystic can only say ' I 
am,' ' He is.'] 

" Mr. Alcott talks of the progress of God, — the Almighty 
going forward to his own infinity, progressively unfolding him- 
self : an idea to me revolting. Mr. H. utters oracles to the same 
effect. 

" This last evening we discussed the condition of women, 
especially in the conjugal relation ; our apparent coldness towards 
relatives, its causes, consequences, and remedies ; our want of 
local attachment ; want of amusements : yet the new state of 
things was deemed better than the old. 

" Before attending this meeting, I went to Dr. Channing's, 
staid a couple of hours, and took tea. His conversation was 
truly delightful, — rather of the nature of discussion. I felt there 
was a broad common ground between us, notwithstanding the im- 
mense superiority of his elevation. We spoke of Dr. Walker's 
lectures on philosophy. Dr. C. thinks the lecturer approaches 
very near materialism himself. I. He speaks of thought as put- 
ting the brain in action, as the digestive force moves the stomach, 
and the hepatic the liver. Now, the digestive force, acting by the 
stomach, secretes chyme ; the hepatic force, acting by the liver, 
secretes gall ; but thought, acting through the brain, secretes — 
what ? Not thought. Again : the hepatic and stomachic force is 
physical : why not also the cerebral force ? And then where is 
th£. Spirituality of men ? II. He says the attributes of matter — 
such as solidity, divisibility, extension, attraction — are totally 
unlike the attributes of spirit, — thought, feeling, &c. ; but he 
(Dr. W.) does not show that there is not a common substance in 
which both inhere. [This admitted, the essence of matter and 
of spirit is the same : all matter is spirit, and all spirit is matter.] 
III. He says the difference between man and the animai is 
this : man has spiritual powers, existing for their own sake; 
animals similar powers, existing, not for their own sakes, but 
for the sake of their bodies. Man thinks. Why ? That he may 
think ; beasts, that they may be fed. Beast never says ' I ; ' has 
no personality. Dr. C. agrees with this. [But how can it be 
known ? Can we enter the consciousness of the horse, and learn 



WEST ROXBURY. 99 

that he never separates himself from all other creatures, and has 
no self-consciousness ?] We see reason in brutes, not con- 
science, not religion. Hence they are mortal. 

" Dr. C. thinks no injustice done to brutes by their mortal- 
ity, but acknowledges the difficulty attending it." 

These extracts show the drift of speculation in New 
England thirty-five years ago, before the modern school 
of Darwin and others came up. Thus boldly did thinking 
men form and express opinions among themselves, having 
no fear of each other. There was an admirable freedom 
combined with an equally admirable modesty. Theodore 
listens and thinks, as courageous as any, but, perhaps, 
with something less of the gravely intellectual spirit that 
entertains ideas apart from their sentimental, moral, or 
social relations. He hears that Mr. Francis is reading a 
book by one Richter, a German, who denies the immortality 
of the soul. He is surprised to learn that some ministers of 
the gospel are disposed to agree with him. Yet he has 
no feelings of acrimony, he falls into no hysterics, but 
asks his friend to lend him the book when he has done 
with it, unless somebody else wants it more. Mr. Parker 
shows his.handthis spring in an article printed in "Brown- 
son's Quarterly Review " for July on Dr. J. G. Palfrey'5 
"Lectures on the Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities." 
The paper handled the matter under discussion with a 
freedom that many thought disrespectful. The writer 
declares that his own hair stood up when he thought of 
what he had written. He is accused, as he was so often 
afterwards, of being sarcastic ; to which he replies thus to 
the friend who made the charge : — 

To William Silsbee. 

West Roxbury, Nov. 27, 1838. 
You think there is sarcasm. I do not think that is too strong 
a word ; though I never intended any thing like it. I hate sar- 
casm ; yet am, perhaps, sarcastic. I wished to indulge in a little 



ioo THEODORE PARKER. 

harmless pleasantry ; but I fear the dean would not share in the 
mirth he excited. You think I indulge in the ludicrous vein too 
much : such is my propensity, no doubt. But how ought things 
to be treated ? Light things lightly, grave things gravely, ridicu- 
lous things ridiculously. I must think ridicule has its place, even 
in criticism. E. g. : Suppose Mr. Poyer should write a book on 
the miracles of the Saviour, attempting to explain them as the 
result of animal magnetism : a critic might show the attempt 
was not successful ; and show also how ridiculous it was to 
make the attempt, and represent the Saviour as filling the five 
thousand with a fancy they had eaten, and letting them go off 
under that impression. 

To my mind, William, there is something strange and startling 
in the assertion, that man has been so constituted, that he can, by 
the use of his faculties, on condition of obedience to their laws, 
achieve all the wonders of science, and take the dimensions 
of the planets, their where-abouts and their what-abouts, and 
yet never be able, by the use of his highest faculties, — I 
mean the spontaneous religious senti77tents (which Jacobi some- 
times calls faith, sometimes reason and conscience), — and by 
obedience to their laws, to learn religious truth, and to be 
certain it was truth he learned, and not error. Is it not most 
of all important for man to settle the questions of Deity, to 
possess religious truth and religious life ? Has God, so bounti- 
ful in bestowing other powers, given him none to discover 
these truths, the most important, the most necessary ? When 
the little (the carnal and temporary) is so abundantly provided 
for, would the spiritual and eternal be neglected ? If I were 
iOid '~(by -.an angel from that planet) that the inhabitants of 
Uranus diftex^d -much from us, that they had seventy senses 
to commune with the outer world, with my present views of 
God I should say wilh. confidence, then must they have seven 
hundred internal senses to commune with God, and should 
expect him to add seven thousand ! Is it not the case, William, 
that, while the Almighty takes such bounteous care of all little 
things that no animal can be found in utmost height or utmost 
deep, all of whose wants are not perfectly satisfied, — none found 
wandering up and down, seeking rest and finding none, — he 
lays most stress on the most important of his works ; giving to 
man, e. g., such uncontested superiority, — reasoning, social, 
aesthetic, religious, and moral powers ? . . . 



WEST 190 X BURY. ioi 

I am better satisfied of religious and moral truth than of any 
thing besides. My eye roams to the stars, and returns to the 
frost on my window which reflects their light ; but the perception 
only startles me with its beauty. I can doubt the existence of 
stars and frost-work ; but in religious truth I doubt nothing. 
The spirit affirms. In science I have a root of truth : in com- 
mon matters, where the senses reach, I have only opinions. I 
keep their laws ; but they can give nothing more. In morality 
and religion I have truths of which I am perfectly certain. 
Why is it ? Because they have been told me ? But for any 
one of these one thousand sensual opinions, which are nothing 
worth to me, — vox et prceterea nihil, — fleeting opinions, I 
have a fountain within me whence to draw infinite supplies of 
religious and moral truth. Did miracles open the fountain ? 
Did they create it ? The dean says there is no such. . . . 

Next you ask if I think a man can attain to all religious truth 
without revelation. No, no, no ! to none at all. But how comes 
the revelation ? It is a revelation in consciousness, made on the 
single condition that man lives by the "law of the Spirit of 
Life/' and always made when the condition is fulfilled. I take 
it that all truth is revelation (though, as there are different modes 
of truth, so there are different degrees of revelation made to 
different men), and that all revelation is strictly in conformity 
with the law of our being, and in conformity with the highest 
powers and laws. I am dependent upon God for all things. I 
have no wisdom without him. In him I live and move, &c. To 
be without him — i.e., to be ca7-nally-minded — is spiritual death, 
— death to the truth. So, William, I believe no man discovers 
truth without a revelation. So the truth is not man's, but 
God's. Did you ever say, " That is my truth " ? But I believe 
revelation is always made through and by the laws of the Spirit, 
and not in a foreign way. Now, I cannot think the revelation 
of Moses or of Jesus different in kind from 'that of Numa or 
Socrates, but infinitely in degree. 

But the truth flashes on the man. You have felt such 
revelations. We labor upon a thought, trying to grasp the truth : 
we almost have the butterfly in our hand, but cannot get it. 
Again we try : it will not come. We walk, sit, pray : it will not 
come. At last, in some moment, it flashes on us ; the crystals 
form in a moment ; the work is all done. Whence came it ? I 
9* 



102 THEODORB PARKER. 

do not know. It is in these burning moments that life is lived : 
the rest is all drudgery, beating the bush, planting and weeding 
and watering ; this is the harvest-hour. These hours are few to ' 
any man, — perhaps not more than two in a week ; but yet all the 
real thought of the man is compressed into these burning mo- 
ments. The Methodist dates his new. birth from them : the 
Orthodox are attempting to reproduce them in four days' meet- 
ings, &c. The mystic is united to God in these moments. 
Paul was caught up to the second heaven. Now, I believe God 
is the fountain of truth, which overflows from him into all minds 
that lie low in his power, wishing to feed these minds of theirs 
in wise passiveness. But how this influence comes I do not 
know. I know nothing about the manner in which my soul is 
connected with God : I- only know the fact. It is a matter of 
experience. My faith is greater than myself. Conscience, the 
religious sentiment, settles truths which I am only to obey ; for 
I have no control over them. 

Now a word upon miracles. I believe most heartily the mir- 
acles of the New Testament, in the Gospels and Acts. Some 
of them I should explain as natural events ; such as Paul's con- 
version, Peter's liberation, perhaps the death of Ananias (I doubt 
on this), Paul's wonderful visits from the angels : I do not think 
of any others but the gift of tongues. Now, I do not see reason 
for believing any of the miracles of the Old Testament. The 
evidence does not satisfy me : the occasion is not worthy of 
them ; the consequence is nothing. All old nations claim simi- 
lar miracles (you remember those in Livy and the Greeks), which 
rest on similar evidence. If any one of the miracles (of the Old 
Testament) rested on sufficient evidence, I would believe it. Be- 
sides, this is to be remembered, — the Orientals never made a 
sharp distinction between the natural and the supernatural : you 
see this ir> the story of the sun and the moon standing still ; and 
often in the Psalms and historic books they would represent 
matters as miraculous which were not so. They do the same 
now. . . . 

I would say the same of Christian miracles. They relate to 
the history, but not to the doctrines, of Christianity. Prove to 
me that they never took place, that there never was a Paul or 
John or Jesus, and I will still prove that Christianity is true : it 
was true before Jesus Christ ; for it is older than the creation. 



WEST R OX BURY. 103 

It is true still. In a word, its truth or falsity has nothing to do 
with the accompanying miracles, I fancy. It makes no difference 
whether Socrates taught in a surtout or a scarf, by day or by 
night : his teaching was false or true by itself. I do not see 
how the doctrines of Mosaism involve historical questions. 

West Roxbury, Aug. 10, 1838. 

... I have never had a summer of more delightful study 
than the present ; never found more satisfaction in theological 
and philosophical pursuits. I have solved many questions 
which have long perplexed and troubled me ; and have grown, in 
some small measure, calmer than of old time. Tranquillity is 
one of my attainable but unattained virtues. Some of my 
inquiries have been historical, others critical ; but philosophy 
has given me most delight this season. I do not say that the 
greatest questions are yet solved, or ever will be. They stand 
now like fire-breathing dragons in my path : I cannot drive 
them away. But, though they often heat, they never bite me. 
Mr. Francis says, in expressing his despair of philosophy, " It is 
better to give it all up, and study the facts of Nature with Kirby 
and Spence, and White of Selborne." 

Who can do it if he would ? The sphinx will have an answer, 
or you die. You must read the riddle. Love of philosophy 
may be " the last infirmity of noble minds ; " but I will cling to 
it still. You ask what effect my speculations have on my prac- 
tice : you will acquit me of boasting when I say, the most de- 
lightful, — better than I could hope. My preaching is weak 
enough, you know ; but is made ten times more spiritual and 
strong by my views of nature, God, Christ, man, and the Sacred 
Scriptures. In my religious conversation, I tell men religion is 
as necessary as head to the body, light to the eye, thought to the 
mind. I ask them to look into their hearts, and see if it is not 
so. They say I tell them the doctrines of common sense ; and 
it is true. 

Questions are often asked on heretical points. I had to tell 
a man the other day that Paul was overtaken by a thunder-cloud 
in his Damascus journey, &c. He said it made it all plain. I 
tell men that Moses and the writers of the Old Testament had 
low views of God, — the best men could have in those times : 
they understand it, and believe the New-Testament account of 



104 THEODORE PARKER. 

God. In regard to Christ, they see a beauty in his character 
when they look upon him as a man who had wants like theirs, 
trials, temptations, joy, and sorrows like their own, yet stood 
higher than the tempter, overcome in every trial. 

They see the same elements in themselves ; but some of them 
almost despair of his elevation of character. I can tell them 
that even he has not exhausted human nature ; that what is not 
behind them is before them ; that a future is better than a past ; 
and that they, by a faithful use of their powers, may yet be, in 
another world, as far before Jesus as he is now before them. I 
dwell mainly on a few great points : viz., the nobleness of 
man's nature ; the lofty ideal he should set before him ; the 
degradation of men of this time, their low aims, and worthless 
pleasure ; on the necessity of being true to their convictions, 
whatever they may be, with the certainty, that, if they do this, 
they have the whole omnipotence of God working for them, as 
the artist brings the whole power of the river to turn his wheel. 
Also I dwell on the character and providence of t God, and the 
exactness and beauty of his laws, natural, moral, and religious. 
My confidence in the Bible is increased. It is not a sealed book, 
but an open one. I consider there are three witnesses of God 
in creation. I. Works of Nature : these do not perfectly reveal 
him ; for we cannot now understand all its contradictions. 2. The 
words of our fellow-men. This confirms all the wisdom of all the 
past. It includes the Sacred Scriptures. Parts of it differ vastly 
in degree from other writings, but not in kind. 3. The infinite 
sentiments of each individual soul. Now, I lay stress on the 
first, but more on the second, and still more on the third : for a 
man may have just as bright revelations in his own heart as 
Moses or David or Paul, — I might say, as Jesus ; but I do not 
think any man ever has had such a perfect God-consciousness 
as he. 

But Paul 'says the spirit searches all things, even the "deep 
things of God ; " and I dare not fancy it can never go beyond 
the writings of the Old Testament. I find nothing in the Gos- 
pels that can ever perish. Paul mistook sometimes, Jesus never : 
men no more understand his words than they can do his mira- 
cles. " Be perfect as God." Do they know what this means ? 
No, no ! My confidence in the gospel is immeasurably in- 
creased. I see that it has meaning, profoundest meaning, in its 



WEST ROXBURY. 105 

plainest figures. " He that is greatest among you shall be your 
servant." What meaning ! It will be understood a thousand 
years hence, not before. But I see the gospel is human, but 
infinitely almost above present humanity. I feel bound to com- 
municate my views just so fast and so far as men can under- 
stand them ; no farther. But, if they do not understand them 
when I propound them, the fault, I think, is mine, and not theirs. 
I often find it difficult to make myself understood ; for I doubt 
much you could find a more ignorant set in the State than my 
congregation of one hundred and twenty. But there are some 
twenty who are intelligent ; all are moral; and I respect them all. 
There is but little religious life among them. My predecessor 
had little, and could not, poor man ! impart what he did not pos- 
sess. We will have a long talk upon these points ; for you know 
the pen is dull and cold, while the tongue is nearer the heart. 
My heart and my hand go together like two turtle-doves, who 
perch on the same bough, and eat of the same food, and drop 
water in one another's beaks. My religion warms my philoso- 
phy, and my philosophy gives strength to my religion. You 
know I do not boast in all this. 

The finest spirits come about him ; among the rest, 
William Henry Channing, — "a most delightful man, full 
of the right spirit ; a little diseased in the region of con- 
sciousness, but otherwise of most remarkable beauty of 
character ; full of good tendencies, of noblest aspirations ; 
an eye to see the evils of society, a heart to feel them, a 
soul to hope better things ; a willingness to endure all self- 
denial to accomplish the end whereto he is sent ; not 
covered by thickest wrappages, which rather obscure his 
worthy uncle, whom I venerate perhaps too much." 

The intellectual event of the summer was, Mr. Emer- 
son's celebrated " Address " before the graduating class 
of the Cambridge Divinity School. 

"Thursday, July 15. — After, as usual, preaching, Sunday- 
schooling, teachers' meetinging, &c, wife and I went over to Brook- 
line, and proceeded to Cambridge to hear the valedictory sermon 
by Mr. Emerson. In this he surpassed himself as much as he 



106 THEODORE PARKER. 

surpasses others in a general way. I shall give no abstract, so 
beautiful, so just, so true, and terribly sublime, was his picture 
of the faults of the Church in its present position. My soul is 
roused ; and this week I shall write the long-meditated sermons 
on the state of the Church and the duties of these times." 

To George E. Ellis, then in Europe, he writes, Aug. 7, — 

" You know Emerson was to preach the sermon before the 
class. I heard it. It was the noblest of all his performances : a 
little exaggerated, with some philosophical untruths, it seemed to 
me ; but the noblest, the most inspiring strain I ever listened to. 
It caused a great outcry ; one shouting, ' The Philistines be upon 
us ! ' another, ' We be all dead men! ' while the majority called out, 
1 Atheism ! ' The dean said, ' That part of it — as I apprehend 
— which was not folly was downright atheism.' " 

Later he writes to the same correspondent, — 

" I sent you Emerson's address to the divinity students. It 
Aas made a great noise. Mr. Norton opened the cannonade with 
a broadside aimed at Emerson, Cousin, Carlyle, Schleiermacher, 
Shelley, and a paper called ' The Western Messenger.' This 
provoked several replies, — one of singular beauty from Theophi- 
lus Parsons ; one from the iron pen of Brownson, in ' The Post ; ' 
and one from J. F. Clarke, in defence of the article in ' The 
Messenger.' Ministers preached on Emerson's sermon. 
Henry Ware delivered a sermon on the personality of God, 
which, it is said, Emerson denies ; and the students of the Divin- 
ity School come out, cap in hand, and say, ' Peccavimus omnesj 
the last class in particular, and request Henry Ware to publish 
his sermon, which is said to be a very good one, and to the point. 
Brownson writes a fierce review in l The Quarterly ; ' which, after 
all, is rather good than bad, though it contains some severities. 
Chandler Robbins speaks mildly, as his manner is, of the whole 
affair, and calls the vulgar rant of denouncing Emerson a 
' vulgar clamor ' and ,: the popular roar.' A. N. is indignant 
thereat ; and this very minute I have read a fourth article of his, 
in this morning's ' Advertiser,' on Emerson, in which he says 
infidelity and atheism have, been long preached by the Unitarian 



WEST ROXB UR Y. 1 07 

ministers, — not by all, but by some few. All this makes a world 
of talk. It is thought chaos is coming back : the world is com- 
ing to an end. Some seem to think the Christianity which has 
stood some storms will not be able to weather this gale ; and 
that truth, after all my Lord Bacon has said, will have to give it 
up now. For my part, I see that the sun still shines, the rain 
rains, and the dogs bark ; and I have great doubts whether 
Emerson will overthrow Christianity this time." 

The air is filled with " wild views." The same letter 
continues : — 

" Simmons was ordained last Tuesday at Dr. Channing's, as 
evangelist, to go to Mobile. Bellows preached the sermon ; 
Dr. Follen gave the charge, Ripley the right hand ; Walker read 
the Scriptures ; Henry Ware made the prayer. All was quite 
transcendental, except Mr. Ware's part, which, of course, was 
savory enough without transcendentalism. The sermon is 
described as being particularly 'liberal ; ' the preacher maintain- 
ing that goodness is goodness in a heathen ; that an Esquimau 
would not be turned out of heaven if he were a good and reli- 
gious man ; and that a true and sincere prayer, though offered to 
an idol, would go to the right place, for the only God would take 
it. The discourse alarmed and shocked the more backward of 
the brethren ; but the younger-hearted were not disturbed. 

" The other day they discussed the question in the Associa- 
tion, whether Emerson was a Christian. G. said he was not, 
and defended his position : rather podrly, you may suppose. J. 
P. maintained he was an atheist. But nobody doubted he was a 
virtuous and most devout man, — one who would enter heaven 
when they were shut out. Of course, they were in a queer pre- 
dicament : either they must acknowledge a man maybe virtuous 
and yet no Christian (which most of them thought it a great her- 
esy to suppose), and religious, yet an atheist (which is a contra- 
diction, — to be without God, and yet united to God), or else 
affirm that Emerson was neither virtuous nor religious, which 
they could not prove. J. W. and N. L. F. thought he should be 
called a Christian if he desired the name. Some of the minis- 
ters think we need to have certain 'fundamentals' fixed for us 
all to swear by, lest the new school among the Unitarians should 



108 THEODORE PARKER. 

carry the whole body up to the height of transcendentalism. It 
is notorious that the old Unitarians, in the days when there was 
fighting for the faith, had no such fundamentals. It is quite 
evident there are now two parties among the Unitarians : one is 
for progress ; the other says, ' Our strength is to stand still.' 
Dr. Channing is the real head of the first party : the other has 
no head. Some day or other there will be a rent in the party : 



From all this it v/ill be seen that Mr. Parker's interest 
. in his profession was sincere. He was a minister ; and 
nothing that concerned his ministry was indifferent to 
him. But he interpreted his ministry in a large way, and 
occupied himself with a hundred matters which seemed but 
distantly related to his calling. All literature in his eyes 
was sacred literature ; all facts were divine facts. Scat- 
tered up and down the pages of the journal are curious 
studies into the mysterious phenomena of nature and life, — 
unaccountable cures, presentiments, previsions, stories of 
second-sight, incidents old and new illustrating the con- 
nection between things visible and things invisible. To 
the last of his life he was gleaning accounts of prophecy 
and miracle. His reading was literally universal in its 
range. He takes up Chapman the poet, Herrick, Wither, 
Drummond, Wotton, Flecknoe, — from whom he copies 
verses, — Surrey, Suckling : no matter who ; there is honey 
for him in every flower. He bursts into such glee on 
hearing of More's poems from Dr. Francis, that two 
men working in the garden think him crazy. The 
early Christian Hymns, the Milesian Fables, " Cupid and 
Psyche," Campanella, biographies of Swedenborg and 
others, — these were his mental recreations. Richter he 
read, but says little about. Goethe always interestedN 
him : " I shall not dare attempt a mecanique celeste of 
\ Goethe. The greatness of the subject appalls me. My 
plummet will not fathom his deeps, nor will my telescope 
reveal all his far heights. He is so vast and so many- 



WEST ROXBURY. 109 

sided, I am puzzled, lost in the labyrinth of the man. 
The ' Farbenlehre ' strikes me with amazement. I looked 
for a fanciful work, full of ingenious thepries, — con- 
clusion before the fact, and even against the fact ; but, 
instead, the work is compact, systematic, vigorous. It 
overthrows my old notion of colors. In my notice of 
Dwight's translation of his poems, I shall speak of Goethe 
only as a poet, and confine myself mainly to' his lyrics, 
' Reinecke Fuchs ' and ' Hermann and Dorothea.' The 
last is my especial favorite." But he cannot get over the 
moral defects of the great German : " Goethe is an artist, 
not a man. . . . His patriotism seems quite low: there is 
no warm beat out from his heart. . . . Goethe never seems 
to have looked on men as brothers. Most men have a 
technical standpoint from which they survey the world. 
Ministers look on men as things to be converted ; kings, 
as things to be ruled. Goethe viewed them, first, as things 
to minister to his pleasure ; second, as objects of art. ' Go 
to, now,' says he ; 'let us make us a poem.' His perfect 
artistic skill is wonderful. In his finished works there is 
scarce any thing in bad taste. . . . He talks of self-renun- 
ciation and the like, but never practises it." 

Through these sunny fields of literature the torrent of 
severer study ploughs its way on. Hume, Gibbon, Robert- ■ 
son, are trifles ; Schleiermacher, Bouterwek, Baur, Hegel, | 
Laplace, Leibnitz, are more serious. Bopp's " Vergleich- I 
ende Grammatik," Karcher's " Analecta," Meiner's " His- 
tory of Religions," Rimannus' " History of Atheism " 
(Latin), are samples of the solid reading. The books 
he has not within reach, — Abelard, for instance, and 
Averroes, — he stretches out his hand, and obtains from 
afar. Wilkinson and Rossellini are familiar to him. 
Hesiod he comments on minutely. No book is men- 
tioned without some notice of its contents and a critical 
remark, which proves it to have been read. Plato is a 
constant companion. The only notice of Shakspeare we 



no THEODORE PARKER. 

find is of the Sonnets, which delight him with their glow 
of feeling. Is it wonderful that this man now and then 
fainted, and fell into moods of sadness ? 

"Thursday, Friday, Saturday. — unwell the first, and sick 
the two last, of these days. Have had no thoughts, save on 
Saturday night, when a real gush from the heavenly fount ran 
through the dusty bed of my brooklet. It gives life ; and a 
sermon is already getting forward through its quickening influ- 
ence. The critique on Goethe has grown into shape, and sun- 
dry flowers for my picture-poem have begun to unfold ; but the 
headache still lingers, — 

4 Though often took leave, yet seemed loath to depart.' 

" What a fool I am to be no happier ! I have enough of the 
outward of life (bating some few sorrows known only to my- 
self) ; am engaged in congenial employment. I should be much 
happier, — pshaw! I should be much nobler. Let happiness hap- 
pen as it may : it is an accident, not the essence. Let me be 
more manly, true, simple, Christian. I am not doing my work : 
I am too idle ; too much afraid of the world. 

" This week has been entirely wasted. One good hour of 
thought a week is all I will ever ask. Then all the growth is 
effected : the rest is only digging and watering and pruning and 
lopping. I have had more than one, — one on Monday, and 
one to-night. Yet I have done but little." 

The special causes of this occasional despondency are 
not disclosed. There was no serious ill-health: his 
habits were regular, simple, wholesome. In the pleasant 
weather he was much out of doors, planting and trim- 
ming in his garden. He took long walks, visiting Bos- 
ton and the neighboring' towns on foot ; doing his ten, 
fifteen, and twenty miles a day without fatigue. In sum- 
mer his pedestrian exploits would have tasked the vigor 
of any but a very strong man. He once journeyed from 
New York to Boston on foot, making about thirty miles a 
day. He walked easily through the White-Mountain 



WES T ROXB URY. in 

region, ascending Mount Washington from the Notch 
and back the same day ; and betimes the next morning 
started off for Franconia. His mirthfulness, the natural 
overflow of animal spirits, the sparkling wit and frolic 
merriment of his near friends in West Roxbury, the 
variety of his studies, the diversion of the lightest litera- 
ture, — for Bulwer's novels, and Longfellow's romances, 
and Marryatt's tales, were in his hands, — saved him from 
the oppression of overwork. He mingled freely with 
people ; was no solitary ; and the people with whom he 
had most to do were simple-hearted, plain, homely folks, 
whom he met on the warm ground of a common hu- 
manity. He was not morbid : there was not a touch of 
the morbid element in his constitution. The cries that 
broke from him, like those voiced above, came partly 
from his heart, and partly from his soul. He was a hun- 
gry man, — hungry for knowledge, and hungry for affec- 
tion. The hunger for knowledge could be appeased by 
books : of them there were enough, and they never failed 
him. The hunger for affection was less easily satisfied. 
Wife, friends, lovers, failed to provide bread enough for 
him. His thirst for confidence and sympathy of the 
genuine manly sort was literally insatiable. 

" At home nominally ; but, since wife has gone, my home is 
in New Jersey. I miss her absence — wicked woman ! — most 
exceedingly. I cannot sleep or eat or work or live without her. 
It is not so much the affection she bestows on me as that she 
receives by which I am blessed. I want some one always in the 
arms of my heart to caress and comfort : unless I have this, I 
mourn and weep. But soon shall I go to see the girl once 
more. Meantime, and all time, Heaven bless her ! I can do 
nothing without Lydia, — not even read." 

The fear that he was to be childless was exceedingly 
bitter to him. The children of his friends he treated as 
if they were his own, — petted them, gave them endear- 



1 



112 THEODORE PARKER. 

ing names ; but they were not his own, and they only 
increased the sense of vacancy in his heart. 

But deeper than this, even, was the feeling of baffled 
aspirations which came to torment him in his hours of 
suspended effort. He was not hungry for fame or power 
or riches ; but he was hungry for attainment ; and the 
more he attempted, the less he was satisfied with his 
accomplishment. 

. But these moods of depression were comparatively 
few. Such passages as those quoted above occur, per- 
haps, a dozen times in all the volumes of the journal ; 
and they are followed by words of strength that seem to 
rebuke them. On the same page with these, as if writ- 
ten with the same stroke of the pen, is one of his 
sketches of work for the week : — 

1. Write a sermon, and finish one not completed. 

2. Finish Goethe's " Farbenlehre." 

3. Baur's " Gnosis." 

4. Do something to Ammon. 

5. Critique, — Hebrew Lexicon. 

6. Begin Augusti's Einleitung to A. T. 

His enjoyment of his literary friends was intense, and 
it was continual. He had long and frequent talks and 
walks with George Ripley, deriving fresh vigor from that 
cheerful, buoyant, accomplished mind. Mr. Ripley was 
one of his great stimulators, as Dr. Francis was, perhaps, 
his chief support, in matters of pure erudition. " George 
Ripley and his wife came to our house Friday, and staid 
until the next Friday. We were full of joy and laughter 
all the time of their visit." His conversations with Dr. 
Channing on the sabbath, the New Testament, the char- 
acter of Jesus, the mythical theory, the morality of the 
Gospels as compared with that of the best heathen, were 
suggestive. Channing was in some respects the more, in 
others the less, conservative. He rather shocked Theo- 



WES T ROXB URY. 113 

dore by his doctrine that conscience must be educated, — 
an idea which Theodore ridiculed, holding to the infalli- 
bility of conscience, and maintaining that it will always 
decide rightly, if the case is fairly put before it, and old. 
habits have not darkened its vision. Channing even 
went so far as to question whether we needed an infal- 
lible guide, — whether such a guide would not be rather a 
disadvantage than otherwise ; but, in regard to the gos- 
pel morality, he was inclined to think that his friend did 
less than justice to Christianity. He was persuaded that 
the character of Jesus was different in kind from his own ; 
he accepted the Bible miracles as distinct in genus from 
those of other nations or books : in all which opinions 
Parker dissented emphatically from him. In other 
words, Parker was a pure transcendentalist, Channing 
only a partial one. There were discussions with Mr. 
Alcott on the comparative merits, aims, and work of Dr.. 
Channing and Mr. Garrison. George Bancroft cheered 
him with his brave confidence in the popular desire 
for spiritual truths. Convers Francis was a fountain of 
living water. He walked to Andover to see Moses Stuart, 
the famous " orthodox " professor ; found him " full of 
talk and anecdote, very uncouth in his manners, broad 
in his mind, and free in his spirit, but crude with undi- 
gested learning and mixed beliefs." He even called on 
Mr. Norton, who always received him coldly ; and, failing 
to find communion of heart, paid a tribute to the neatness 
of his mental operations and the perfect order of his 
papers. 

The event of 1839, m tne Unitarian world, was Mr. Nor- 
ton's address to the alumni of the Divinity School on " The 
Latest Form of Infidelity," a performance which revived 
the war between the old and the new schools. " Is it 
not weaker than you ever fancied ? " Theodore writes to 
Miss Peabody. "What a cumbrous matter he makes 
Christianity to be ! You must believe it is authenticated 
10* ' 



H4 THEODORE PARKER. 

by miracles; nor that only, but that "this is the only way 
in which it can be attested. I doubt that Jesus himself 
could be a Christian on these terms. Did you notice the 
remarkable mistranslations of the German passages ? 
They are such as no tyro could make, I should fancy. It 
will do one good work : it will present the subject to the 
public mind ; and now we may have a fair discussion." To 
Mr. Silsbee he writes, " Ripley is writing the reply to Mr. 
Norton. It will make a pamphlet of about one hundred 
pages octavo, and is clear, strong, and good. He will 
not say all that I wish might be said ; but, after we have 
seen that, I will handle, in a letter to you, certain other 
points not approached by Ripley. There is a higher 
word to be said on this subject than Ripley is disposed to 
say just now. But la long controversy will probably grow 
out of this : ink will be spilled on both sides, and hard 
names called in the excess of Christian charity that usual- 
ly attends religious controversies. ' I find no men among 
the Unitarian ministers who like the address : even- Dr. 
Parkman thinks it weak. But some of the lay brethren 
think the "matter fixed ; that Mr. Norton has ' done tran- 
scendentalism up.' " 

The points that Mr. Parker wished presented were fun- 
damental. How does man attain to religion? whence 
get the essential truth thereof ? What is meant by a reve- 
lation? Is revelation necessary in order to a vital and 
sufficient religion ? Has the revelation been made to all 
nations, or so that all nations have had an Opportunity to 
become- acquainted with it^ Is Christianity a peculiar 
revelation, or the perfection of all previous revelations ? 
These points he proposed to open in a pamphlet by 
" Isaac Smith." The pamphlet was written and published, 
but under another title : " The Previous Question between 
Mr. Andrews Norton and his Alumni moved and 
handled in a Letter to all those Gentlemen, by Levi 
Blodgett." And a very admirable tractate it was for clear- 



WEST R OX BURY. 1 15 

ness, pith, and point. Planting himself on the ground 
that man has a spiritual nature endowed with original 
capacity to apprehend primary religious truth directly, 
without the mediation of sacrament, creed, or Bible, he 
stood outside and above the controversy that raged about 
him. His faith, being intuitive, was unassailable by his- 
torical doubt or literary criticism. Every thing might go, 
— Old Testament, New Testament, miracles, ordinances, 
formularies: he was safe. On the question of literary 
criticism his mind was far from clear; but he was con- 
tent that it should be so. He would answer questions as 
well as he could when they came up ; but he would not 
fret if they were unanswered. He would not timidly 
thrust them aside, nor would he rashly jump at conclu- 
sions that were not warranted by his discoveries. He was 
deeply, almost passionately, concerned that people should 
not rest their beliefs in God, duty, immortality, on exter- 
nal evidence ; that they should trust in the revelations that 
come to their own souls : but there his concern stopped. 
He made no war on opinions as such, but on the princi- 
ples relied on to justify opinions, and on the spirit in 
which opinions were held. Men might believe, if they 
would, in the Bible, Hebrew and Christian ; in the miracu- 
lous birth and peculiar nature of Christ ; in the incarna- 
tion, the transfiguration, the resurrection. He would not 
molest them, provided they believed, first of all, in the 
soul of course : being thus justified in thinking freely, he 
thought freely; being privileged to use his intellect, he 
used it. 

To Dr. Francis. 

" It seems to me most of us set a false value on the writings of 
the New Testament. We take them to be our standard of life and 
doctrine ; and yet probably no learned and free Christian thinker 
believes all that is contamed i?i any writer of the New Testament. 
Two evangelists evidently believe the miraculous conception; 
all, perhaps, credited the popular notions about 'possessions. 



n6 THEODORE PARKER. 

Matthew, Mark, and John do not say a living dove descended on 
Jesus ; but Luke does say it. Can there be any doubt the first 
three evangelists supposed that words were spoken in an artic- 
ulate voice announcing his acceptance with God? Certainly 
there can be no doubt that they, and the Saviour himself ', as well 
as Paul and Peter, misunderstood passages of the Old Testa- 
ment, and misapplied them. No doubt Paul thought he saw 
' angels.' I don't believe Luke thought the Damascus journey 
a natural affair, or that Paul thought it was less than miraculous. 
Peter and John need not be mentioned, and still less the Epistle 
to the Hebrews ; for in all these the incongruities are more 
remarkable, perhaps, than in the other parts of the New Testa- 
ment. Now, if the New Testament is a standard of life and 
doctrine to you and me, we are bound to believe these state- 
ments (if possible). But we do not believe them. This is all 
right ; but the people believe them, or think they must believe 
them, which is still worse. Now, as you said the other day, how 
different the Bible as you studied it at home from the Bible 
as your parishioners listened to it at church ! Is it necessary 
there should always be this clerical view, and this laical view 
so different from it ? Would not the people be better, wiser, and 
holier if they were emancipated from this stupid superstition 
which now hangs like a millstone about their necks ? It seems 
to me, if the true inspiration of the New Testament was under- 
stood, if men could read it as they read Plato or Seneca (not 
that the New Testament is not incomparably superior to them), 
they would be more enlightened and inspired thereby. I take 
it, the main difference between us and the Orthodox is not 
respecting the doctrine of the Trinity, or total depravity, or the 
fall, or election (for we all agree near enough on these points, 
and believe in ' God the Father,' in revelations in man, which 
is the Son, and in revelations to man, which is the Holy Spirit, 
&c), but in respect to the Scriptures. The Orthodox place the 
Bible above the Soul ; we, the Soul above the Bible. They 
tell us, that, when you and I were born, all revelation was at an 
end, all the capital prizes of humanity withdrawn before our 
time. When we go up to the bar of God, and ask for our mite, 
they say, ' You have Moses and the prophets: hear them.' In 
short, they say, ' The canon was closed before you were born : 
you are to study its letter, to get out its spirit; that is all.' 



WEST ROXB UR Y. 117 

We do not believe this statement. Is revelation at an end ? Is 
the Bible better than the soul ? The Hindoo says that of his 
Veda; the Mohammedan, of his Koran. But, if the Christian 
says so, he dies; for Christianity is the religion of freedom. So 
the fact that we always take texts from the Bible, read its good 
passages, and pass over its objectionable clauses, and allegorize, 
or put a higher sense to passages, tends to mislead men as to 
the true nature of the book. Do not suppose I have any dis- 
position to undervalue the Bible: I only want the people to 
understand it as it is. I remember talking with old Mr. John 
Richardson about the Bible once. He said he had recently read 
the first part of the Old Testament again : and he was sorry he 
had read it, because he could not believe itj and, before, he thought 
he believed all. 

" Let any sober man read De Wette's ' Biblical Dogmatics,' and 
he will be astonished to see how many doctrines are taught in the 
Bible which enlightened men cannot believe. I must think, that 
by and by, centuries hence, the Old Testament will be dropped 
out from the Church : then the New Testament will follow, or 
only be used as we now use other helps. I can't but wish, with 
you, that Jesus had written his own books ; but even then they 
must have contained some things local and temporary." 

To the Same. 

March 22, 1839. 

... Is not this plain that the New Testament contains 
numerous myths ? Certainly the book of Acts has several, — 
Paul's Damascus journey ; Peter's delivery from prison ; Paul's 
shipwreck ; the story of the ascension ; of the miraculous 
gift of tongues. We can explain all these things naturally ; but 
did the compiler of this queer book explain them in this way ? 
What right have we to use a different system of exegesis from 
that we apply to the apocryphal Gospels and every other writ- 
ing ? Not the smallest. But we cannot believe the literal 
statement of Luke : so we attempt to save his credit, and invent 
a system of interpretation for the purpose. But, in the same 
manner, we could make the story of John Gilpin an allegorical 
history of the origin, progress, and perfection of Christianity. 

The Gospels are not without their myths, — the miraculous 
conception, the temptation, &c. Now, the question is, Where 



II 8 THEODORE PARKER. 

are they to end ? Who will tell us where the myth begins, and 
the history ends ? Do not all the miracles belong to the mythical 
part ? The resurrection — is not that also a myth ? I know you 
will not be horror-struck at any doubts an honest lover of truth 
may suggest ; and certainly I see not where to put up the bar 
between the true and the false. Christianity itself was before 
Abraham, and is older than the creation, and will stand forever ; 
but I have sometimes thought it would stand better without the 
New Testament than with it. 

CHRIST. 
From the yournal. 

" How much do we idealize him ? Very much, I suspect. I 
look on the Christ of tradition as a very different being from the 
ideal Christ. The latter is the highest form of man we can 
conceive of, — a perfect incarnation of the Word ; the former a 
man, perhaps of passions not always under command, who 
had little faults and weaknesses that would offend us. He must 
have been fatigued at times, and therefore dull. His thoughts 
came like mine ; so he was sometimes in doubt, perhaps contra- 
dicted himself, and taught things not perfectly consistent with 
reason ; or, at best, gave utterance to crude notions. From the 
nature of the case, he could not do otherwise. Thought is life 
generalized and abstract : it comes, therefore, only as we live. So, 
from year to year, and day to day, Christ must have generalized 
better as he lived more. His plans evidently were not perfectly 
formed at first : he fluctuates ; does not know whether he shall 
renounce Moses or not. He evidently went on without any plan 
of action, and, like Luther at the Reformation, effected more than 
he designed. At first, perhaps, he meditated simply a reform of 
Mosaism ; but finally casts off all tradition, and starts a fresh 
soul. 

" His power of miracle-working is an element of the soul ; 
we find it in all history : it is a vein running through all history, 
coming near the surface of life only in the most elevated charac- 
ters, and in their raptest states of mind. So the central rocks 
only crop out in mountains. We all feel this miracle-power 
ideally (Alcott says actually likewise, and perhaps he's right : I 
can feel something of it, supposing it is what Emerson calls 



WES T ROXB URY. 119 

demoniacal influence). Jesus, a greater man than ever lived 
before or since, lived it actually. His miracles, therefore, were 
natural acts ; not contrary to outward nature, but above it. To 
man they were natural; to the mass of matter, supernatural. 
So he can raise the dead, multiply loaves, walk on the sea. 

" His inspiration I can understand still better. There can be 
but one kind of inspiration; it is the intuition -of truth: but 
one mode of inspiration ; it is the conscious presence of the 
Highest, either as Beauty, Justice, Usefulness, Holiness, or 
Truth, — the felt and perceived presence of Absolute Being in- 
fusing itself into me. . . . 

" Christ, I fancy, was one of the greatest souls born into the 
world of time, and did also more perfectly than any other man 
fulfil the conditions of inspiration : so the Spirit dwelt in him 
bodily. His was the highest inspiration, his the divinest revela- 
tion. But this must be said of actualities, not of possibilities. It 
is folly, not to say impiety, to say God cannot create a greater 
soul than Jesus of Nazareth. Who shall attempt to foreshorten 
God, and close the gates of time against him, declaring that no 
more of his Spirit can be by any possibility incarnated ? Jesus 
was cut off at an early age, the period of .blossom, not 
fruitage. . . . 

" The Christ of tradition I shall preach down one of these 
days to the extent of my ability. I will not believe the driving 
beasts out of the temple with a whip ; the command to Peter to 
catch a fish ; still less the cursing the fig-tree, and the old 
wives' fable about the ascension.^ 

PAUL AND CHRISTIANITY. 
From the Journal. 

" What would have been the result if St. Paul had not been 
converted on his Damascus journey? Take the life of St. Paul 
out of the Christian Church, and how much is left ? Would 
Christianity have sunk down into a Jewish sect, like that of the 
Essenes ? or would it, by its inherent might, have created a 
Paul ? How he shot above James and Peter and the others, 
save only John ! . . . What if Christ had been born in Kam- 
tchatka : we should have heard nothing of him. Why, then, may 
there not have been other Christs ? . . . 



120 THEODORE PARKER, 

"The first Christian writings were Paul's Epistles. In. his 
time there were no Gospels. I doubt strongly that Paul knew any 
thing of the Christian miracles, or the miraculous birth of Jesus, 
or his temptation, or prediction of his death. Had he known 
the facts (?), would he have alluded to them ? " 

THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 
From the Journal, 1841. 

" All I read of them convinces me more of their noble 
character, aim, and life. But I see their limitations. They 
were superstitious, formal; at least, after the middle of the 
second century, and perhaps also in the apostles' times : the let- 
ter burdened them ; but they were full of the noble, manly 
spirit. Their ascetic doctrines of marriage, dress, amusement, 
education, I dislike vastly. They laid too much stress on baptism, 
the eucharist ; giving the latter to men to keep at home, carry 
in their pocket, &c. ; gave it to little children just after baptism ; 
put it in the mouth of dead people, and the like. 

" But how they died ! How they prayed ! How they lived ! 
We cannot yet afford to criticise these men. Certainly they were 
not gentlemen ; but they were men. The wonder is, that, being 
so much, they saw no more." . 

HERETICS. 

From the Journal. 
" They began very early : indeed, we find them in the times 
of the apostles. In Jesus you are in the filer oma of light : step 
into the apostles, it is already evening, and the light is behind 
you; take another step, and you are in fathomless darkness. 
Heretics have always been treated as the worst of men. Imagina- 
ry doctrines have been ascribed to them, — immoral ceremonies. 
They have been charged with sins of the blackest dye. . . . 
Jerome says the heretics, even if they lead blameless and beauti- 
ful lives, have only the image and shadow of virtue. Tertullian 
chides Marcion, after the fashion of Dr. South, with his God 
who is not to be feared ; and asks him why, if he does not fear 
God, he does not go to the theatre and bawdy-house, and game 
and drink. Phiiastor and Augustine censure some heretics 
who would think the planets, sun, moon, and stars were worlds, 
because they denied the resurrection of the flesh. . . . 



WEST ROXBURY, 121 

" Nothing will ever save us but a wide, generous toleration. 
I must tolerate and comfort my brother, though I think him in 
error, though I know him to be in error. I 'must tolerate his 
ignorance, even his sin ; yes, his intolerance. Here the only 
safe rule is, if some one has done you a wrong, to resolve on the 
spot never to do that wrong to him or any one else. It is easy 
to tolerate a man if you know he is a fool, and quite in the 
wrong ; but we must tolerate him when we know he is not a 
fool, and not altogether in the wrong." 

From the Journal, April i, 1839. 

" I have just finished a review of Strauss for ' The Examiner.' 
I could not say all I would say from the standpoint of 'The 
Examiner,' — for this is not allowable, — but the most the 
readers of that paper will bear. If the editor is shabby, as he 
was a few days ago, he will ' decline the article,' ungrammati- 
cal as it may be. I have written it, however, at his request, and 
with no small labor. The reading of sixteen hundred pages like 
this is something ; and then, to consider the study of the books 
of Ullman, Tholuck, and the ' Streit Schriften,' it makes up a 
good deal of work." 

From the Journal, Sunday, Aug. 1. 
" Was at home. Communion in the morning. This rite be- 
comes less and less to me. I would gladly abandon it ; for it trou- 
bles me. Leave the elements, and give me a meeting for prayer, 
conversation, or preaching, not the amphibious thing we have 
now. I confess the rite was never much to me. The time spent 
alone would always have been the more profitable. Could it be 
possible, this should be my plan, — to have a meeting in the even- 
ing for religious conversation, and prayer (if needful) at private 
houses ; and bread and wine might form part of the entertain- 
ment. I cannot but think Christ would be astonished at these 
rites. But let this go : it warms the hearts of pious women, we 
are told." 

Though these opinions were expressed chiefly in the 
journal and in private letters, Mr. Parker's published 
writings were guarded, and his sermons were mostly prac- 
tical and religious. Towards devout prejudices he was 



122 THEODORE PARKER. 

very gentle, not from lack of courage, but partly from dis- 
trust in the finality of his views, partly from fear of going 
too fast for his hearers, and partly from his deeper interest 
m essential ideas than in casual criticisms. The spirit of 
his beliefs appeared in sermon and prayer. He said 
nothing in public he did not believe : he was careful that 
his people should not be justified in ascribing to him 
beliefs he did not entertain. But he waited the bidding 
of conscience before telling all he knew, or thought he 
knew, about the Bible. Two discourses on the Scriptures 
remained unpreached in his drawer for two years, biding 
their time for delivery. When the time came, the preacher 
found the people more than prepared for their contents. 
At this period, Parker was no image-breaker : indeed, he 
never was, unless he saw that the image concealed the 
god. 

Still an evil opinion of him got abroad. Pulpits began 
to be closed against him ; ministers declined to exchange, 
a sign of fellowship withdrawn. 

From the Journal, November, 1840. 

" I have solicited an exchange repeatedly with Y g ; could 

not get it : with B— ; — tt ; with Dr. P n. To ask either of 

these men again would be a dereliction from Christian self- 
respect. So let them pass. I feel no ill-will towards any of 

them. I will try G tt soon, for the experiment's sake ; and 

so with the others, excepting , with whom I wish no exchange 

for moral reasons. Their answer decides my course for the 
future. Let us see ! I should laugh outright to catch myself 
weeping because the Boston clergy would not exchange with 
me!" 

Before it fairly came to this, his position was so well 
understood, and he was so generally regarded as a man 
suspected, that letters of sympathy, encouragement, and 
friendly warning, came to him. The following letter shows 
how he received such communications : — 



WEST ROXBURY. 123 

To Miss E. P. Peabody. 
/ ( " Touching my becoming a martyr, as you and Miss Burley 
conjecture, I think I should have no occasion for the requisite 
spirit, even if I had that article in as great abundance as John 
Knox or John Rogers. I have precious little of the spirit of a 
martyr : but, inasmuch as I fear no persecution, I fancy I can 
'say my say,' and go on s?noothlyj but if not — why, well, I can 
go roughly. I trust I have enough of the spirit always to speak 
the truth, be the consequence what it may. It seems to me men 
often trouble themselves about the consequences of an opinion 
or action much more than is necessary. Having settled the 
question that an opinion is true, and an action perfectly right, 
what have you and I to do with consequences ? They belong 
to God, not to man. He has as little to do with these as with 
the rising of the sun or the flow of the tide. 

" Doubtless men said to Galileo, ' Your system may be true ; 
but only think of the consequences that follow \ What will 
you do with them ? ' The sage probably replied, i I will let 
them alone. To do duty and speak truth is my office. God 
takes care of consequences.' " /f 

To the Same. 
" I thank you most profoundly for the kind and seasonable 
advice touching the matter of prudence ; but you cannot fancy I 
have any desire to set the world on fire by promulgating heresies. 
I have not the furor divinus which impels some of the young men 
to vent their crude conceptions, to the injury, perhaps, of them- 
selves and the public. Prudence, in the common sense, is a vulgar, 
sneaking virtue, which bids a man take care of his meaner inter- 
ests, though at the expense of all that is noble in action or divine 
in contemplation. But Christian prudence is a different thing. 
It is a wise forecasting of results ; a foreseeing consequences in 
their causes, and preparing to meet them when they come. Mr. 
Alcott would no doubt rejoice to say that prudentia was only 
pre-videntia ; and so it is. 

" I have only one consolation for all evils ; and that is, an abso- 
. lute faith that it is all right, that it will one day produce the best 
possible influences over me, and that then I shall see how fool- 
ish I have been to complain. All of us mourn over many failures : 
favorite schemes are dreamed out, only to fail soon as we 



124 THEODORE PARKER. 

attempt to realize them. By and by the cloud breaks away, and 
we see it would have been worse had they succeeded. It must 
be so in all cases. ' May Heaven refuse to grant half of our 
prayers ' was a wise petition of some old sage. There can be 
no, such thing as absolute evil ; and from the standpoint of 
Omniscience, when the whole appears as it is, there can be no 
semblance of evil. This is all the comfort I have for any sorrow, 
or for all sorrows : therefore I can say with old Henry More, — 
♦ 

Lord, thrust me deeper into dust, 
That thou mayst raise me with the just.' 

" Is it possible, however, for any one to have a faith so deep, 
so active, so perfect, that all sorrows can be borne as cheerfully 
as blessings are enjoyed ? It may be possible for some to reach 
this state ; but only for a few ; certainly not for me. You have 
by nature a deep and active faith, which spontaneously over- 
flows, and, like the sacred waters of the Nile or Ganges, makes 
all around it green and fruitful." 

If these passages express confidence, they also betray 
sorrow. Though endowed with a sanguine temperament 
and a stout heart, Mr. Parker had an immense capacity 
for suffering, which all his power of accomplishment could 
not deaden or suppress. The cry was the more agonizing 
for not being heard. He did care more than he thought 
he did for the fellowship of his ministerial breth- 
ren ; for they were his brethren in a ministry which he 
loved, and could not bear to see desecrated by sordid con- 
siderations. To lose his companionship and his confi- 
dence at once was a severe blow. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT. 



It was a remarkable agitation of mind that went on in 
Massachusetts thirty years ago. ' All institutions and all 
ideas went into the furnace of reason, and were tried as 
by fire. Church and State were put to the proof ; and the 
wood, hay, stubble — every thing combustible — were con- 
sumed. The process of proving was not confined to Bos- 
ton : the whole State took part in it. It did not proceed 
from Boston as a centre : it began simultaneously in differ- 
ent parts of the Commonwealth. It did not seem to be 
communicated, to spread by contagion, but was rather an in- 
tellectual experience produced by some latent causes which 
were active in the air. No special class of people were 
responsible for it, or affected by it. While in Boston the 
little knot of transcendentalists — Channing, Ripley, Mar- 
garet Fuller, Emerson, Alcott, Francis, Hedge, Parker 
— were discussing the problems of philosophy at the 
Tremont House and elsewhere, the farmers in the country, 
and plain folks of Cape Cod, were as full of the new 
spirit as they, and were reaching, though from the oppo- 
site region of common sense, the same intrepid conclu- 
sions. It was a time of meetings and conventions for 
reforms of every description. A man of the people like 
Theodore Parker, utterly free from conventionality, know- 
ing no distinctions of persons, equally at home with 
learned and simple, interested in what Epictetus calls the 
ii* 125 



126 THEODORE PARKER. 

" bare man," was sure to be on the spot where any thing 
of practical moment was taking place. The journal con- 
tains a long account — eight closely-written folio pages — 
of a convention held in Groton in August of 1840. It is 
too long to be copied in full here, as Mr. Weiss has done 
in his biography ; nor would the importance of the occa- 
sion justify the occupation of the required space : but so 
characteristic an example of the mental condition of the 
time must not be passed by. 

The call for the convention was issued by Second Ad- 
ventists and Come-outers, — two very unlike classes of 
people, except in the one particular of being rude and 
uneducated. The former we know about : the latter had 
no distinguishing tenets, but held opinions of every radi- 
cal type, taking their name from the mere circumstance 
of their having " come out " from the regular churches. 
The distance to Groton from Boston was about thirty 
miles. An expedition thither on foot was proposed ; the 
original .company being Ripley, Parker, and a new friend 
of theirs, E. P. Clark. They picked up Cranch at New- 
ton, and walked on to Concord ; stopping, as they went 
along, to refresh themselves at a farm-house, or rest a 
moment by the way-side, but trusting to the talk to 
shorten the way. At Concord they called on Mr. Alcott ; 
got a word of admonition from old Dr. Ripley (aged 
ninety), who charged them not to become " egomites," or 
self -sent men; and then repaired to Mr. Emerson, "who 
looked as divine as usual." With him they took tea. 
The next morning the party, increased' by the addition of 
Alcott, trudged on to Groton. Some little reconnoitring 
was required before Mr. Hawley, the herald of the con- 
vention, could be found. When discovered, he proved to 
be a young man of about four and twenty years, of pleasant 
countenance, but unprepossessingly so, Mr. Parker thought. 
" Brother " Hawley introduced them to Brother Himes 
of Boston, Brother Myrick of Cazenovia, Brother Russell, 
and others whose names were unremembered. 



THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT. 127 

On inquiring what was to be done at the convention, 
the reply was negative and unsatisfactory. The two ques- 
tions not to be discussed were, 1. What constitutes a 
Christian? 2. What constitutes a Christian church? 
Brother Jones was to hold forth that night on the second 
coming of Christ in 1843. The discourse would be very 
interesting, no doubt ; but 1843 was still m the future : 
there might something be transacted in the mean time. 
So the party of travellers adjourned, and enjoyed a talk by 
themselves. The convention had interesting features, 
from the mere circumstance of its wildness and fanati- 
cism ; but ;he most interesting were the people them- 
selves. There was Joseph Palmer, " a man with a meek 
face, and a fine gray beard six or eight inches long, clad 
in fustian trousers and a clean white jacket." He had 
been a butcher; but had renounced that calling, partly 
from the conviction of the wrongfulness of eating flesh. 
His face was pleasantly touched with enthusiasm : Alcott 
found him full of "divine thoughts." He wore his beard 
because God gave it to him, doubtless for some good 
end. Joseph spoke to this effect in the convention : " If . 
you are here to discuss the Church of Antichrist, I have 
nothing to say ; for I know nothing of that. But I know 
something of the Christian Church. You have said a 
good deal about getting into the Christian Church, and 
about getting out of it. Now, there is but one way of 
getting out of the Church, — that pursued by Judas, also 
by Ananias and Sapphira. No man, save himself, can put 
one out of the Church. Now, I will tell you how to getinto 
the Christian Church. Christ said to the young man who 
asked how to obtain eternal life, ' Sell all that thou hast, 
and give to the poor.' If he did that, he was saved. 
Now, if he was saved, he was a Christian, of course, — a 
member of the Church of Christ. Why, then, do you 
make such a talk about the way to become a Christian ? 
It is perfectly plain. - There is not a girl here twelve years 



128 THEODORE PARKER. 

old who cannot understand it." For himself, he had 
thought out all that had been said in the meetings long 
ago, when he lay in a dungeon for conscience' sake. 

B. W. Dyer was a young man of about twenty-five, a 
farmer, and a minister as well. He had little book-learn- 
ing, but deep thoughts. When Alcott asked him about 
Christ, he said, " Truth is Christ, and Christ truth." He 
expected salvation from the inward Christ ; in short, by 
becoming the Christ. Here was a. rude farmer, who had 
found the same well-spring that had quenched the thirst 
of the learned Ralph Cudworth and many a profound 
mystic besides. His theory of inspiration was, in sub- 
stance, that set forth in "The Dial." Paul and Peter were 
inspired ; but so were others, — some more, some less. His 
idea of death and the resurrection was strictly apostolic. 
He believed that they who possessed the entire truth, who 
were the Lord's own, would never die, but would be spir- 
itualized, and caught up into the air. Another personage 
Mr. Parker christened " Mantalini," from his close resem- 
blance, in whisker, dress, watch-chain, and drawl, to the 
illustrious character in " Nicholas Nickleby." He was an 
Englishman ; had been a Baptist, then a Universalist, 
afterwards a member of the legislature, and was then a 
preacher. In his affected, " dandiacal " manner, he com- 
pared the Christian Church to Samson going down to 
Timnath and slaying a lion ; a remark which provoked our 
friend Theodore to the satirical rejoinder, that, when 
Samson went down to Timnath and slew the lion, he had 
not been shorn by Delilah, but continued true to his vow 
of austerity. The covert allusion to soap-locks and other 
effeminacies was lost on " Mantalini," who, when the meet- 
ing was over, congratulated the grim humorist on his 
interesting speech, with nearly all of which he heartily 
agreed. ' 

Nickerson and Davis were two preachers among the 
" Come-outers," — " two as rough-looking men as you would 



THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT 129 

meet in a summer's day ; but their countenances were full 
of the divine." Their hands, their dress, their general 
air, showed that they belonged to the humblest class in 
society. 

Mr. Bearse was a plain Cape-Cod fisherman, — a skip- 
per, probably, — of bright, ruddy, cheerful countenance. 
He spoke briefly, gesticulating in a manner distressing to 
Brother Hawley, and to this effect : " I see about in the 
land many little Babels of sectarian churches, as you call 
them. Now, I see you wish to pull down these little, Ba- 
bels ; to take the combustible materials of which they are 
made, and erect one great Babel, into which you may 
enter. You are in a fair way ; and, if this is not confu- 
sion of tongues already prevailing, I don't know what 
Confusion is." Brother Hawley was not rejoiced. Pres- 
ently Mrs. Bearse, a " sister to live " as they called her, 
arose and spoke, her husband cheering her on. She 
stated meekly and beautifully — this Cape-Cod saint — 
her religious history, her connection with an Orthodox 
church, then with a Freewill Baptist church, and her per- 
secution in both. " Now," she said, " the Lord has set me 
in a large place." " Her remarks showed plainly that she 
spoke from the divine life. I afterwards talked with her, 
and saw how divine her heart appeared, and her counte- 
nance also ; for she has one of the fairest faces I have 
seen for many moons." 

The opinions of the " Come-outers " were found to coin- 
cide in many respects with those Mr. Parker had arrived 
at by his own trained reflection. The Christian ordi- 
nances they esteemed highly : " They are our daily work. 
We do not count a rite better than any other act. If our 
heart is right, whatever we do we shall do for the glory of 
God. Baptism we think little of," said Mr. Nickerson, 
" and therefore seldom administer it." — " But," said Mr. 
Bearse, " sometimes a brother wishes to be baptized ; and, 
if the Spirit moves me, I baptize him, or some other does 



130 THEODORE PARKER. 

it. We don't think it necessary for the minister to do this : 
any one into whom God puts the desire may do it." 

The Lord's Supper they held in light estimation ; rarely 
administered it, and never except one was moved to it by 
a spontaneous action of the divine feelings. The last time 
it was administered was at Sister Nancy's house. Several 
had met one evening to worship ; and Brother some one 
said, "The Spirit moves me to eat the Lord's Supper." 
Whereupon Sister Nancy went to the cupboard, brought 
forth bread and wine, placed it on the table, and the 
brother sat down and ate and drank. " All our meals," 
they said, " are the Lord's Supper, if we eat with a right 
heart. He that • eateth, eateth to the Lord ; and he that 
eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not." 

Whoever wished to join their company did so without 
ceremony. No questions were asked about his creed ; he 
subscribed to no confession ; set his name to no paper ; 
was free to come and go. In case of difficulty between 
one of the society and a member of another church, some 
of the brethren went quietly and settled the dispute 
according to the apostolical method, and so successfully, 
that they were sometimes asked to mediate in matters of 
controversy outside of their own body. Should one come 
to their meeting who did not believe in Christ or the Bible, 
or even a God, they took him by the hand, bade him wel- 
come and God speed in a good course. Should such a one 
offer to speak in meeting, they heard what he had to say ; 
and, if he could convince them, they were ready to be con- 
vinced. 

They had no rules for worship : each prayed as he was 
moved, in words or silently. As they talked with their new 
acquaintances, Joshua Davis felt moved by the Spirit to 
pray; knelt down, and poured out his petition "with 
beauty and great earnestness." l 

Their ministers declared that they were ministers of 
silence no less than of speech. They never spoke except 



THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT 131 

when moved thereto ; and each spoke as moved, without 
restraint j "" for it took the whole Church to preach the 
whole gospel." 

They had no church-edifices : all houses where good 
and pious people lived were Lord's houses ; all days well 
spent, Lord's days. Since one day had been set apart by 
custom, they met oftener then than on other days when 
labor prevented ; but the true worship was a divine life 
during the week, — a life of humility, justice, and mercy. 
Thus they prayed without ceasing ; thus their life was a con- 
tinual sacrifice. 

Their ministers might or might not be educated. They 
had no ordination, and received no salary : they worked 
like others for their living, owing no debts but the debt of 
love ; making their own wants few, that they might have 
something to give to them that were in need. Joshua 
Davis was a working-man, who, over and above the time 
given to labor for his bread, visited troubled and dying 
people as a "physician of souls." Yet he managed to give 
away out of charity, in one year, a hundred dollars. They 
counted their calling sacred ; but no more so' than any 
other ; no more so than that of the humblest sister, though 
she were but six years old, who made herself useful. They 
recognized no distinction between sacred and profane 
things where the heart was holy. Some of the ministers 
lived up to a very high calling. This very Joshua Davis 
rose the year round at four o'clock, and was heard often 
before daylight at his devotions, which were at times so 
fervent as to disturb the household ; in which event he 
would go out to the barn, and give voice to the passion of 
his prayer. 

They used the Bible as a help to godliness. "Men 
worship the Bible," said Mr. Bearse to Mr. Parker, " just 
as the old pagans worshipped their idols. This is just as 
truly idolatry as that false worship was. The Bible is a 
Scripture of t the Word, not the Word itself ; for the Word 



132 THEODORE PARKER. 

is never written, save in the living heart." Books of a 
mystical character were used among them, such as Law's 
" Serious Call," " Spirit of Prayer," " Christian Perfection," 
ScougaPs " Life of God in the Soul of Man," George Fox's 
"Journal." Jacob Boehme's more simple and practical 
treatises were not unknown to them. They held that men 
were inspired in proportion as they had received the truth ; 
and they received the truth through obedience. 

Mr. Parker made a long speech at the convention, to 
the general approval of the audience, in which he set forth 
in direct and simple language his idea of the original 
Christianity as it lay in the mind of Jesus ; described the 
early departures from it ; traced the rise of the ecclesias- 
tical and sectarian spirit; portrayed in vivid colors the 
actual condition of the Church ; and more than hinted at 
the radical reforms that were necessary, if the religion 
was to vindicate its claim to be the savior of mankind. 
" What is the Church now ? " he asked. " St. Paul said, 
' Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' But 
where the spirit of the Church is, there is slavery. The 
Holy Spirit says, ' Be a true soul ; live a divine life.' The 
Church demands a belief, and not a divine life. The best 
men come to her, and find no life, no power." Thus he 
sums up his impressions of the convention : — 

" i. I am surprised to find so much illiberality amongst the 
men who called the convention. They were not emancipated 
from the letter of the Bible, nor the formality of a church. They 
simply wish to pull down other sects, to make room for their own, 
which will probably be worse than its predecessors. 

" 2. I am surprised and enchanted to find these plain Cape-Cod 
men and numerous others, who have made actual my own highest 
idea of a church. I feel strengthened by their example. Only 
let it be united with high intellectual culture. 

"3. I am surprised to find many others who have emancipated 
themselves from the shams of the Christian Church, and now 
can worship God at first-hand, and pray largely and like men. 



THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT 133 

I don't know that I have got any new ideas : but certainly my 
confidence in my old ideas has been deepened ; for I see they 
may be made actual. 

" This convention effects nothing directly by its long string of 
resolutions ; but it does much indirectly. It sets the ball in 
motion, which will go far before it stops." 

If it was a bold thing to attend a convention of " Come- 
outers " at Groton, it was a bolder thing to be one to call 
a convention in Boston for the consideration of questions 
concerning the sabbath, the ministry, and the church. It 
was held in Chardon Street, Nov. 17. Few acts so dam- 
aging to reputation could be done. The risks of inunda- 
tion from all kinds of radicalisms were veiy great : it was 
striking a blow at the heart of the holiest respectabilities, 
and offering a large opportunity for unruly spirits to disport 
themselves. " All my friends after the flesh, and some of 
my friends after the spirit, regretted that I had any agency 
in calling the convention. Lamson, a beautiful soul, 
doubts the convention ; fears bad use will be made of 
truth : nous verrons. Dr. Channing also doubts the pro- 
priety thereof, since it looks like seeking agitation : here, 
again, we shall see. I have my own doctrines, and shall 
support them, think the convention as it may. I look on 
the Church as a body of men and women getting together 
for moral and religious instruction, on the minister as a 
moral and religious teacher, and on Sunday as a day set 
apart from work and common secular vocations. All of 
them are human institutions, but each valuable ; I would 
almost say, invaluable." 

The convention met, discussed, and dissolved, having 
brought to pass no very great result. 

From the Journal, Sept. 23. 
"Went to Boston to attend the Non-resistant Convention. 
Don't agree with them entirely, but like their spirit and upward 
tendency. Like not their formula of ' No Human Government.' 



134 THEODORE PARKER. 

Think circumstances render it needful sometimes to take life. 
If a man attack me, it is optional on my part to suffer or to 
resist ; but, should he attack my wife with the worst of purposes, 
why should I suffer the wicked to destroy the righteous, when 
I could save her by letting out his life ? I should deprecate the 
issue being tendered ; but, if it were tendered, I have little doubt 
which course would be revealed to me as the true one." 

The time, however, for enlisting in special reforms had 
not yet come to Mr. Parker. General questions interested 
him now rather than particular ones. The condition of 
society at large weighed heavily on his mind. Like all 
thoughtful men who lead secluded and bookish lives, — we 
may say, in proportion as they lead secluded and bookish 
lives, — he was interested in the problem of evil. The sep- 
arate problems of evil present themselves chiefly to those 
who live in cities. In his sweet country village, books 
supplied the chief materials for speculation on the ills of 
society. The writings of St. Simon, Victor Considerant, 
Charles Fourier, and others of the various schools of 
socialism, were becoming known in America, and their 
doctrines were already creeping into our speculations. 
Albert Brisbane's pamphlet, in part a reproduction of 
Fourier, had attracted attention. It pointed out the vices 
and miseries of modern society, and proposed to cure 
them by reconstructing society itself from the foundation, 
on new principles, resting on a new philosophy of human 
nature. Mr. Parker reads, ponders ; thinks the book will 
do a great deal of good. The "phalanx" does not appear 
to him more improbable than a city may be presumed to 
have seemed to Abraham. The portrayal of the evils of 
society strikes him forcibly: he is glad to see the case 
stated boldly. 

From the Journal. 
" Brownson has recently written an article on the laboring- 
classes calculated to call the philosophic to reflection. He 
thinks inherited property should be given up ; that the relation 



THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT. 135 

of master and servant, employer and employed, should cease ; 
that the priest is the chief curse to society. This makes a great 
noise. The Whigs, finding their sacramental idea — money — 
in danger, have come to the rescue with fire-brands and the like 
weapons. Fearful lest the article should do harm, they trumpet 
forth to the people those doctrines, which, if left alone, would 
come only to scholars. I like much of his article, though his 
property notions agree not with my view. Yet certainly the 
present property scheme entails awful evils upon society, rich 
no less than poor. This question, first, of inherited property, 
and, next, of all private property, is to be handled in the nine- 
teenth century, and made to give in its reason why the whole 
thing should not be abated as a nuisance. 

" Society now rests on a great lie. Money and service have 
much to answer for. Can one man serve another for wages with- 
out being degraded ? Yes ; but ?wt in all relations. I have no 
moral right to use the service of another, provided it degrades 
him in my sight, in that of his fellows, or of himself ; yet per- 
sonal service is connected with this degradation." 

In a note on Murphy's " Science of Consciousness," he 
remarks, " This book is but a straw on the stream ; but it 
shows which way the current sets ; and God knows what 
will be the end of this awful movement. Heaven save us 
from an English reign of terror ! . . . 

" The same question must be passed on in America. 
Property must show why it should not be abated ; labor, 
why it should exempt so many from its burdens, and crush 
others therewith. It is no doubt a good thing that I 
should read the Greek Anthology, and cultivate myself in 
my leisure, as a musk-melon ripens in the sun • but why 
should I be the only one of the thousand w r ho has this 
chance ? True, I have won it dearly, laboriously ; but 
others, of better ability, with less hardihood, fail in the 
attempt, and serve me with the body. It makes me groan 
to look into the evils of society. When will there be an 
end ? I thank God I am not born to set the matter right. 
I scarce dare attempt a reform of theology, lest I should 



136 THEODORE PARKER. 

be in for the whole; and must condemn the state and 
society no less than the church/' 

From the Journal. 
" Ripley dislikes the customs of property, — a father transmit- 
ting it to his son ; but I see no way of avoiding the evil. The 
sin lies deeper than the transmission of property from getter to 
enjoyer. It lies in the love of low things, and in the idea that 
work degrades. We must correct this notion, and then all is 
well ; and, before that is done, to hew down the institutions of 
property, and cut the throats of all that own lands, would do little 
good. How the world ever came into such a sad state it is diffi- 
cult to conjecture : how it is to get out of it is impossible to 
foretell." 

From the Journal. 

" Mrs. R. gave me a tacit rebuke for not shrieking at wrongs, 
and spoke of the danger of losing our humanity in abstractions. 
Many remarks of hers sank deeply into me." 

From the Journal. 
" I have lived long enough to see the shams of things, and to 
look them fairly in the face. 1. The State is a bundle of shams. 
It is based on force, not love. It is still feudal. A Christian 
State is an anomaly, like a square circle. Our laws degrade, at 
the beginning, one-half the human race, and sacrifice them to 
the Other and perhaps worser half. Our prisons are institu- 
tions that make more criminals than they mend: seventeen- 
twentieths of crimes are against property, which shows that 
something is wrong in the state of property. Society causes 
crimes, and then hangs the criminals. 2. The Church is still 
worse. It is a colossal lie. It is based on the letter of the 
Bible and the notion of its plenary inspiration. It is the hos- 
pital of fools, the resort of rooks and owls. The one thing it 
does well is the baptizing of babies." 

In August of 1840 Mr. Parker went to New York and 
visited the " Tombs," which he thus describes : " It is a 
large block of buildings, embracing a whole square, and 
comprising a court-house,, jail, and yards. It is a very 



THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT. 137 

magT cent and imposing edifice in the old Egyptian style. 
T^aste which would expend all that architecture on a 
DU jng so loathsome as a jail is most wretched. Shame 
tfothe disgrace of society should be thus arrayed in 
co j dress, and made to flaunt before the public eye ! I 
we into the court-house to see ' justice ' administered. 
j^ gro was on trial in the Court of Sessions for abusing 
hicrife. It seemed to me the place was well called 
<p/ptian' from the darkness that covered over justice 
^e ; and ' Tombs,' for it appears, as all our court-houses 
a] the sepulchre of equity. How can it be ' justice ' 
t( punish as a crime what the institutions of society ren- 
g unavoidable ? How could any thing better be ex- 
acted of the poor wretches daily brought up to that 
;urt, exposed, naked as they are, to all the contamina- 
on of corrupt society ? 

" This poor negro, on trial for a crime, showed me in 

iniature the whole of our social institutions. 1. He was 

ie victim of Christian cupidity, and had been a slave. 

. From this he had probably escaped by what was 

;ounted a crime by his master; or else was set free by 

|:harity, perhaps desiring to cover up its own sins. 3. 

He was cast loose in a society where his color debarred 

jiim the rights of a man, and forced him to count himself 

a beast, with nothing to excite self-respect, either in ,his 

condition, his history, or his prospects. Poor, wretched 

man ! What is life to him ? He is more degraded than 

the savage ; has lost much in leaving Sahara, and gained 

infamy, cold, hunger, and — the white man's mercy — a 

prison of marble. Oh, what wrongs does man heap on 

man ! " 

George Ripley, one of the strongest pulpit-speakers in 
Boston, was so pierced and wounded by the sense of 
social abuses, that, in full sympathy with a noble wife, he 
left his profession, impatient with the " foolishness of 
preaching," sold his fine library at auction, and, gathering 
12* 



138 THEODORE PARKER. 

: e of 
together all that he had, inaugurated the enterpri. er }_ 
associated mind and labor at Brook Farm. The ex - to 
merit was tried in a spirit of deep sincerity, as an eff o ^ e 
carry out in some degree the ethics of the Sermon on'be- 
Mount, by restoring natural and primitive relations ^ er 
tween man and nature, and between man and man. Nei, ar _ 
the founder nor his coadjutors were disciples of any ;re 
ticular teacher of socialism, though some of them \^ e 
acquainted with French writings on the subject. r .rfr 
views of Fourier were understood but partially throi ls 
translators and interpreters: few accepted his system a 
a whole. The spirit that animated him was abroad - 
society ; but the opinions he formed at the suggestion { 
that spirit were more congenial with the French than wi 
the English or American mind. The problem of Bro< 
Farm was the practical reconciliation of labor, capita 
and culture, by mutual participation in toil and its result 
This is not the place to give an account of an underta 
ing, which, from obvious causes, did not prosper eith 
as a financial speculation or as a social scheme, but whic 
brought together for a short space of time a remarkabl 
company of men and women, most of whom have sine*. 
been distinguished in letters, and gave to all who were 
concerned in it an amount of pleasure they never could 
have obtained otherwise, and never will recall without 
feelings of hearty satisfaction. The story of Brook £arm 
is a story which the cultivators of it delight to tell over to 
their friends. Will not one of them adequately tell it to 
the public ? 

The grounds were, by a short cut across the fields, not 
more than a mile from Mr. Parker's house. The spirit 
never moved him to take part in the enterprise. He was 
too absorbingly interested, it may be, in the theological 
reform he was pushing, to throw himself with force into 
any scheme for the regeneration of society ; or perhaps 
the instinct of practical utility which he followed made 



THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT. 139 

such schemes seem visionary. But he was a frequent 
visitor, and a keen inspector of the movement. The social 
freedom there was a delight to him ; the conversations 
were a lively joy ; and no one relished more than he the 
fine ironies of cultivated ladies bending over the wash-tub, 
of poets guiding the plough, or of philosophers digging 
potatoes. His faith in the undertaking may have been 
small ; but his entertainment with it was immense. It is 
probably from the circumstance that the experiment took 
so little hold of his mind that there is no more notice of 
it in the journal. His enjoyment was on the spot. 

Parker's faculty of getting fun out of serious things 
in which he felt a truly deep concern, and at which even 
he did his share of work, is shown in the way he pleasantly 
laughed at " The Dial," a magazine for literature, philoso- 
phy, and religion, which was begun in 1840. He wrote 
for it faithfully, putting into it some admirable articles on 
literature, theology, and ecclesiastical affairs ; yet, in a 
letter to a friend, he can speak of it thus : — 



To Dr. Francis. 

Dec. 18, 1840. 

Apropos of " The Dial : " to my mind it bears about the same 

relation to " The Boston Quarterly " that Antimachus does to 

Hercules, Alcott to Brownson. or a band of men and maidens 

daintily arrayed in finery, " walking in a vain show," with kid 

mitts on their " dannies," to a body of stout men in blue frocks, 

with great arms and hard hands, and legs like the Pillars of 

Hercules. If I were going to do the thing in paint, it should be 

thus : I would represent a body of minute philosophers, men 

and maidens, elegantly dressed, bearing a banner inscribed with 

" The Dial." A baby and a pap-spoon and a cradle should be 

the accompaniment thereof. The whole body should have " rings 

on their fingers, and bells on their toes," and go " mincing as 

they walk," led by a body of fiddlers, with Scott's Claude Halcro 

"playing the first violin and repeating new poetry." This body 

of the excellent should come out of a canvas city of Jerusalem 



140 THEODORE PARKER. 

set upon a hill. On the other hand should come up a small 
body of warriors looking like the seven chiefs before Thebes, 
and swearing as they did, with just about as modest devices on 
their shields. They should be men who looked battles, with 
organs of combativeness big as your fist. They should be cov- 
ered with sweat and blood and dust, with an earnest look and 
confident tread. " Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds " 
should encourage them. At their head should stand " Orestes 
Augustus Brownson," dressed like Daniel, with Goliath's sword 
in one hand, and that giant's head in the other. Would not 
this make a picture ? 

This muscular mind was impatient of amateur perform- 
ances : he had a keen eye for the deficiencies of people 
who put themselves forward as reformers of the world, but 
were themselves unreformed. His admiration for Miss 
Margaret Fuller was qualified. Here is the mildest judg- 
ment on her from the journal : " Miss Fuller came Sat- 
urday. She has outgrown Carlyle. Well, I am glad : I* 
wish the world had outgrown him. She thinks Carlyle 
inferior to Coleridge (doubt this much) ; that the latter will 
live, and the former be forgot Miss Fuller is a critic, not 
a creator, not a seer, I think. Certainly she is a pro- 
digious woman, though she puts herself upon her genius 
rather too much. She has nothing to do with God out of 
her. She is not a good analyst, not a philosopher." 
Character was uppermost with him. The moral element 
was decisive : it is the apparent absence of it that stag- 
gers him as he contemplates the system of nature. Read 
this from the journal : — 

" There are many things in nature which are utterly incom- 
prehensible to me. They are contradictions rather than excep- 
tions. I mean such facts as the following : Alligators devour 
their own young till they are too large : how frightful this is ! 
how unlike the rest of God's creation ! Volcanoes and earth- 
quakes I can understand : they do not puzzle me. Squirrels 
castrate one another. I have often shot young and old males 



THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT. 141 

deprived of a part of their generative organs. I have seen two 
old squirrels seize a young one half grown ; and, one holding 
the wretch, the other plied his sharp teeth, and emasculated him. 
What does all this mean ? This is a sad symbol of what man 
does. Mr. Alcott's theory accounts for it better : viz., the world 
is the product of all men : so long as men do such things, some 
animals will do likewise." 

This was penned before Darwinism was in vogue, or the 
new doctrine of evolution, which contents itself with tracing 
the development of life, leaving interpretations to the 
future. " Mr. Alcott's theory " has a flavor of the old 
orthodoxy, which ascribed the fall of nature to the fall of 
man ; a theory that would be less vulnerable if the fall of 
nature had succeeded the fall of man, instead of preceding 
it, as for the most part it does. It is hard to believe that 
the fall of man was heavy enough to shake in pieces and 
disjoint the order of creation which had existed several 
hundred thousand years before he came ; unless indeed, by 
making the whole planet reel, he jostled out of place 
every thing upon it. This ancient theory Mr. Parker dis- 
carded when he thought of it ; and he had no other to put 
in its place. He could only observe : that he did. He 
noted the cruelty of animals towards one another, — the 
barbarity of the cat to the mouse, which she tortures before 
eating; the abortions of nature, — the monsters, calves with 
three heads, human foetus consisting of only a head, and 
the like ; the robbery which the bald eagle commits on the 
fish-hawk, the lion on the jackal, the wolf on the fox ; the 
want of natural affection, — wasps destroying their young, 
bees killing drones, &c, birds driving other birds from 
their nests and then appropriating them, ants enslaving 
other ants ; the sins against nature committed by numerous 
animals, — the dog, for instance ; the disgusting practices 
of apes, frogs, and fishes ; things that suggest a dark ele- 
ment in the creative cause of the world, or imply that mat- 
ter has some qualities which the Deity cannot control. 



142 THEODORE PARKER. 

But the philosophy of dualism he will not accept : it seems 
to him inconsistent with common sense. 

He is not without suspicion of a law of development. 
He marks the anticipations or prophecies which a lower 
class of beings afford of the next higher, — the toes in the 
horse's hoof; the fingers beneath the skin; the singular 
man-likeness of certain monkeys ; the resemblance to hu- 
man limbs noticed in some plants, as the orchis and lady's- 
slipper : but the clew is not continuous enough to lead him 
far ; and he sets these things down as curious facts, which 
puzzle, but do not torment. 

. " If we look scientifically at these things, and attempt to clas- 
sify as in other cases of scientific examination, shall we con- 
clude the world is governed by an infinitely wise and good 
Being ? 

" I. Notice the immense physical evils occasioned by war, 
slavery, oppression, like that of the Turkish rulers, of the rich 
barons ; the horrible mutilations, cruelties, &c, that take place, 
even in these days ; the evils of sickness and poverty, that are 
without fault of the sufferer. 

" II. Note the exceeding low state of morals in all lands, in 
the United States, even in Boston ; how unchristian men are ; 
yet Christianity is only absolute humanity. Note the selfish 
spirit, money-getting, ambition, intemperance, ignorance ; yet this 
is probably one of the most favored peoples. Take the richest 
class in Boston : how do they stand when tried by the absolute 
standard ? 

" Note still further the prevalent vices in other countries, — 
licentiousness in Italy, Germany, and France. We may say 
the sin in each individual is slight : perhaps there is no sin in 
the matter ; for personal sin is violation of conscience. So it 
may be an absolute sin, viewed from the point of pure justice 
or right, and not a personal sin. Still the consequences are the 
same : I. The physical evils that follow the violation of mate- 
rial law. 2. The degradation of the individual, so that con- 
science is cast down, and all but extinguished. 

" Consider the superior activity of evil over good. Vice 



THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT. 143 

spreads with rapidity, virtue slowly. Notice the extreme suffer- 
ings of individuals. 

" Now, in estimating these matters, my own faith says there 
is a perfect system of optimism in the world ; that each man's 
life is to him an infinite good : of course, all his physical evils 
must be means of progress ; all his vile acts, likewise, unavoida- 
ble steps in his course to happiness. But, to legitimate this in 
the court of the understanding where all other truths are legiti- 
mated, I find difficult. Faith has nothing to do there. I will 
imagine a person who claims that all things work together for 
good, and suppose myself to reply to the arguments I should 
bring in such a case. I should not know how to answer him : 
I should appeal solely to faith for my own satisfaction." 

Thus sincerely he faced the problems, presenting the 
difficulties in their most formidable shape. He had, how- 
ever, a constitution which turned away naturally from the 
repulsive side of creation. A single flower affected him 
more deeply than a blasted forest ; a beam of light gave 
him a joy that many cloudy days did not dispel. He was 
so sensitive to beauty, that ugliness, though of hundred- 
fold bulk, scarcely seemed to reach him. The tender 
plant growing from a bed of rotted leaves justified the 
pile of decay ; the violet lifting up its blue eye from the 
cold damp ground more than excused the ground. Had 
his temperament been less buoyant than it was, his heart 
must have fainted ; for no spectral optimism would have 
availed against the terrible realism of his thought. 

To Miss E. P. Peabody. 

Dec 18, 1840. 

At different stages of life I have been amazed at the power and 
the wisdom that are involved in the creative act ; but of later 
years, as I look more through the surfaces of things, — or, at 
least, try to do so, — it is the beauty and loving-kindness of God 
that strike me most. I think, with you, that we can apprehend 
the creative moment through love, and through that alone. It is 
this that solves all the mystery. It cares little for the details of 
the work, but tells us at once, " Out of the depths of infinite 



144 THEODORE PARKER. 

love God drew forth the world. O mortal ! whoever thou art, 
thank God that thou art born, and take courage ; for thou also 
art a child of infinite love, and all of the past is working in thy 
behalf : so fear not. What though you weep a little as you 
scatter the seed, and the cold rain of spring drenches and chills 
you: from this very field you shall fill your bosom with 
sheaves of satisfaction." To me, this thought, this feeling, is 
enough to wipe the tear from my eye at any time. It is infi- 
nite counsel and infinite comfort. It has been adequate for all 
the trials I have yet found, and I trust it will help me " till the 
world ends." I often wish I could impart this same feeling to 
others ; but the attempt always reminds me of the truth in Plato : 
" It is of all things the most difficult to find out God, and impos- 
sible to communicate him to others." Yet it has come to me with 
little conscious difficulty. I sometimes try — yes, it is the object 
of my preaching — to lead all to this same " watch-tower in the 
skies : " but they tell me, " Look at the evil, the wretchedness, 
the sin of the world, the wrongs ' that patient merit of the unwor- 
thy takes ' ! " as if I could not see them all, and feel some of them. 
I wish you would tell me, my dear Elizabeth, some better method 
of doing this : you are the all-sympathizer, and must know how 
to do this kindly office also. Prithee tell me how you would go 
to work to " create a soul under the ribs of death," and give this 
confidence to one who lacks it still. 

To impart his faith he finds difficult When others sug- 
gest their doubts and fears, he often stands dumb, praying 
internally for them, and hoping that time will bring them 
repose. But for his own part, however much his heart 
may be wrung, the serenity of his soul is unbroken. The 
following passage on death is taken from a letter : — 

" How few of us are there that are bound to the mortal by ties 
so strong we would not willingly see them severed at almost any 
time ! Even those who reluct a little at the thought of death 
are usually unwilling on their friend's account, not on their own. 
Death is always a blessing to him who dies : the man ceases to 
be mortal. I cannot look on this change which takes place in 
the animal system with that terror wherewith some men regard 



THE FERMENT OF THOUGHT. . 145 

it. To me it is a change which is always made for the better, — 
an important change, it is true ; but it is no more to a man than 
the change from the infant's .' long-clothes ' to the ' frock and 
trousers ' of the boy. 

" I understand, therefore, why Swedenborg found men in the 
other world who had forgotten all about their death ; in a word, 
did not remember they had ever died. Perhaps most men do 
not remember any thing about their change from ' baby-clothes ' 
to the boy's dress. Why need they think any more about death, 
or fear it any more ? I have not forgotten all about my change 
of dress. I remember that I cried, and struggled most lustily 
against the new dress ; and, when my legs were squeezed into 
their new envelopes, I was so ashamed, that I went into the fields 
to hide myself. I doubt that I should complain half so much if 
Death were to come with the new suit, and tell me to lay aside my 
old rags, and put on the new clothes. 

" Are we not foolish in talking about preparing to die ? Our 
business is to live. He that is prepared to live, andy?/ to live, is 
fittest to die : is he not ? To wear well the one suit is to prepare 
well for the next. I am sometimes disturbed by the canting talk 
one hears about preparing to die. I want to live ; for the soul 
never tells you or me that we shall die. The senses die ; and so 
death is an affair of the senses, — too sensual a matter for wise 
men to concern themselves much about." 

I cannot more fitly close this chapter, or the thoughts it 
contains, than with the prayer written out in his journal 
at the close of the year. Such words of supplication close 
all the years. Prayer was as natural to Theodore Parker 
as breathing : it was breathing, — the deep inspiration of 
his soul, as he stood at the " eastern window of divine 
surprise," and caught the breeze from the " mountains 
of the dawn." It is not often pleasant to come across 
written prayers in a private diary ; but his seem like the 
efflorescence of what went before. 

PRAYER. 

" O thou Spirit whom no name can measure, and no thought 
contain ; thou to whom years are as nothing, and who art from 
*3 



146 THEODORE PARKER. 

everlasting to everlasting ! I thank thee that my life still lasts 
from year to year. I thank thee that my cup is full of blessings. 
But I would bless thee still if thou didst fill my cup with 
grief, and turn my day into night. Yea, O God, my Father ! I 
will bless thee for whatever thou shalt send. I know it is all 
very good. I bless thee that thou art still very nigh me ; that 
thou speakest to my heart from year to year. Thou kindlest 
my faith ; thou quickenest my love ; thou castest down my fear. 
When my father and mother forsake me, thou wilt take me up. 
O my God ! bless me still this coming year. Be not afar off. 
May I never become false to thy gift ! Let my eyes be open, 
my heart true and warm, my faith pure and heavenly. May 
religion dwell in the inmost sanctuary of my heart ; let it be 
my daily life ! And, wherever the years shall find me, may I do 
my duty without fear, and so live on, lying low in thy hand, and 
blessed by thy goodness ! Amen." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 

It has by this time been made clear that Mr. Parker 
was not a rash innovator either in doctrine or in practice. 
He was as far from that as it was possible for a man to be 
whose steps take hold on new paths at all. By sentiment, 
affection, association, practical bent of mind, he was con- 
servative, not destructive. He had no disposition to 
break the bruised reed, or to quench the smoking flax. 
He loved the church, the ministry, the brethren. Though 
swift in reception, he was deliberate and cautious in 
creation. He took time in coming to conclusions, and 
waited his opportunity. Bearing testimony "in season 
and out of season " was not his way. He would be sure 
before he made up his mind ; he would be sure before his 
intimate friend knew that his mind was made up. All 
things considered, it is surprising that his old opinions 
gave place so reluctantly to new ones. What he believed 
was too strongly rooted in his tenacious mind to be 
pulled up by even a strong hand at the first effort. Like 
Luther, he clung to the faith of his youth as long as it 
would allow. In the Divinity School, although he had 
talked much with Mr. Francis, and read many a book of 
a rationalizing tendency, he was old-fashioned in his opin- 
ions for a Unitarian. The elder ministers were his admi- 
ration. His relation to Miss Cabot brought him into 
familiar acquaintance with Mr. Ripley, afterwards his 

147 



148 THEODORE PARKER. 

bosom-friend, who was importing the latest books in Ger- 
man philosophy and criticism, and reading them with eager 
interest. They were freely lent to the young student, to 
whom all literature was manna from heaven, and in whose 
warm veins all honest thought made blood. The books 
were, with hardly an exception, unorthodox, in most cases 
vehemently so ; and, being learned and strong, they natu- 
rally modified the student's mind. Parker had never 
identified literature with faith, however closely he may. 
have held them associated ; and so, without serious mis- 
givings, he suffered the literature of religion to undergo 
inevitable changes. His views of scripture, of miracle, 
prophecy, apostolical and other infallibility, became altered 
from month to month, as matter of course. Truth to him 
was truth. 

• But these books contained a good deal besides criticism : 
they contained philosophy of a new school.- The re-action 
against the philosophy of sensation, supported by the 
authority of John Locke, and pushed to extremity by David 
Hume, — a re-action which began with Kant in the last cen- 
tury, and continued through Fichte and Schelling, — had 
carried before it the living mind of Germany. The great 

I names in literature became great through its inspiration. 

/' Richter, Goethe, Schiller, were its prophets ; Schleier- 
macher and Herder were its apostles ; Staiidlin and Am- 
nion, Gabler and Wegscheider, were its theological exposi- 
tors ; Strauss and De Wette assumed it. The doctrine of 
intuition, that truth is disclosed immediately to the 
reason or the soul, took place of the doctrine of sensation, 
that truth is revealed by mediation of book ; and the 
authority of all outward instrumentalities, church, bible, 
creed, was tacitly repudiated before a single scripture 
was doubted, or a single miracle denied. The vessels of 
dogma, rite, ceremony, church, were not scuttled until the 
spiritual freight they carried had been transferred to the 
spiritual nature, there to be secure from hidden reef or 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 149 

sudden tempest. In England the transcendental move- 
ment was represented by Coleridge, who was a student of 
Schelling. Thomas Carlyle came later, with reproductions 
of Jean Paul and his own tremendous preaching against 
shams in church, state, and society. France took the 
work in hand according to her genius, not with philosophic 
profundity or critical acuteness, but with neat faculty of 
generalizing and explaining, — Victor Cousin, and Jean 
Philibert Damiron, and Benjamin Constant, and Theo- 
dore Simon JoufTroy, each after his own manner, and in 
his own department, vindicating the competence of the 
human reason. The writings of these men, especially 
of Cousin, Jounroy, and Constant, were known here 
in the original, or through translations by George Ripley 
and William H. Channing. America had a prophet and 
seer all its own, beholding and announcing the same 
great vision on this side of the water, Parker's admiration 
of whom was early and boundless. "The brilliant ge- 
nius of Emerson," he says, "rose in the' winter nights 
and hung over Boston, drawing the eyes of ingenuous 
young people to look up to that great new star, ' a beauty 
and a mystery,' which charmed for the moment, while it 
gave also perennial inspiration, as it led them forward 
along new paths and towards new hopes." 

The new philosophy commended itself to Parker at 
once, like his mother's milk. Religion had always been 
a spiritual thing with him from his childhood, never a 
formal or doctrinal thing. He never knew what it was to 
be converted from the philosophy of sensation to the 
philosophy of intuition. As a boy, he was. a transcenden- 
talist without knowing it. When he became a man, he 
was a transcendentalist on conviction. Then reason 
legitimated what he had always felt : the piety of the 
heart became the philosophy of the intellect. His only 
task was to remove from the new spiritual temple, which 
was rising in beauty, the rubbish of former edifices that 
13* 



150 THEODORE PARKER. 

once stood on the same ground; and this task he per- 
formed with great cheer, presuming on the copious grati- 
tude of his generation for the work performed. 

But the Unitarians were not in a mood to be thankful 
for such service. They, with very few exceptions, looked 
on their work as done. They had proved, to their own 
satisfaction at least, that the dogmas of Trinity, Deity 
of Christ, Vicarious Atonement, Total Depravity, and Ev- 
erlasting Damnation, were unsupported by Scripture, and 
they were in the main content. Precisely what was sup- 
ported by Scripture they did not undertake specifically to 
declare ; but that whatever was accepted must be accepted 
on the authority of Scripture, they did not question. "To 
the law and to the testimony ! " was their cry. In textual 
criticism they showed themselves skilful ; but behind the 
text they did not go. The genuineness and the authen- 
ticity of the New Testament, the plenary authority of the 
apostles, the supernatural origin and divine mission of 
the Christ, the inspiration of the prophets, the validity of 
miracles as credentials of the Messiah ' and his officers, 
were accepted truths. The Unitarians were, almost to a 
man, disciples of John Locke, — professors more or less, 
probably less, intelligent of the philosophy that the great 
religious ideas — God, immortality, duty — were given to 
the world through external revelation imparted by men 
inspired for the purpose, written in " sacred books," and 
authenticated by signs and wonders. Half a dozen 
minds, perhaps, had distinctly outgrown this position. 
Dr. Channing was outside of it so far as the fresh vigor 
of his moral sense revolted against the conventional ethics 
of his sect, and his aspiration after a nobler humanity 
transcended the dull level of respectability where the 
Unitarians as a party stood ; but he seems never to have 
been a complete transcendentalist. The Wares were full 
of evangelical piety, and were honest-minded as men 
could be ; but they were neither deep students nor bold 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 151 

adventurers into new fields of speculative thought. . A 
few scholarly men of fine literary culture read the Ger- 
man and French books; entertained their minds with the 
new thoughts ; took an intelligent interest in them \ ac- 
cepted in their libraries the conclusions of Herder, 
Schleiermacher, Gabler, De Wette ; but felt no call to 
announce their discoveries, lacking the moral earnest- 
ness, or the faith in the people, or the sense of profes- 
sional duty, or the vitality of interest, that the reformer's 
task demanded. Among the ablest and most accomplished 
were some, who, from the constitution of their minds, 
could not take a side. As students, thinkers, men of let- 
ters, they had their opinions, and rather startling ones, 
too, in some cases ; but, as clergymen, they considered it 
their office to repeat the traditions and teach the received 
theology in the most reasonable form. 

The sect, as such, was torpid. It was respectable, and 
wished to remain so. It had put off its armor, and flung 
itself down on the grass, and was unwilling to be dis- 
turbed. Its piety was low: the sermon had become a 
moral essay ; the hymns were didactic ; the prayers were 
dry ; the passion for holiness had cooled down to a sense 
of propriety. The creative period of the movement had 
passed ; and the apathy was the deeper as the stir had 
been shallower. When Luther parted from Romanism, he 
was in the open sea, with the great winds blowing and the 
mighty waves tossing about him ; but, When the Wares 
and Buckminster and their compeers left Protestantism, 
they were comfortably near shore, and soon tethered qui- 
etly to the wharf. The Unitarians were about as compla- 
cent a set of Christians as ever took ship for the king- 
dom. 

In parting from Protestantism, Theodore Parker, on the 
contrary, believed himself to be slipping his moorings, and 
going out into the open sea, — the deep sea of truth. A man 
of complete integrity, an undivided nature, all of one piece, 



152 THEODORE PARKER. 

he could make no practical distinction between man and 
minister, scholar and preacher, man of letters and man 
of duty. All his thoughts were beliefs ; all his beliefs 
were convictions. The nice discrimination between opin- 
ions of the library and opinions of the pulpit was un- 
known to him. Already his outspokenness had made him 
suspected as a disturber of the peace: he had received 
warning letters ; had been called " infidel ; " brethren had 
been prevented from exchanging pulpits with him by " ill 
health," "home engagements," "frequent absence from 
their desks ; " but no open rupture had taken place, nei- 
ther party being aware how wide the gulf had become. 

The revelation was made on the now famous occasion 
of the ordination of Mr. Charles C. Shackford at South 
Boston, on the 19th of May, 18 41. Mr. Parker preached 
the sermon, on " The Transient and Permanent in Chris- 
tianity," from the text, "Heaven and earth shall pass 
away ; but my word shall not pass away." 

It was a memorable sermon. Though written in a 
week of languor ; though regarded as poor by the preacher, 
and pronounced by a friend to whom it was read before 
delivery to be the weakest thing he had ever done ; 
though loose in structure, redundant in style, and shad- 
owy in definition, — it was a remarkable discourse, the 
more effective from the faults, that were such to the 
critical hearer alone. The gorgeous amplitude struck 
the popular imagination ; and the moral earnestness that 
throbbed in the speaker's heart, and thrilled to his fingers' 
ends, made itself felt like the presage of a revolution. 
Not to be a moment compared, as a work of art, with 
Emerson's exquisite chant three years before, as a mani- 
festo it was vastly more significant. The opening passage 
sounds an alarm : — 

" In this sentence we have a very clear indication that 
Jesus of Nazareth believed the religion he taught would 
be eternal; that the substance of it would last forever. 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 153 

Yet there are some who are affrighted by the faintest 
rustle which a heretic makes among the dry leaves of 
theology : they tremble lest Christianity itself should 
perish without hope. Ever, and anon the cry is raised, 
' The Philistines be upon us, and Christianity is in dan- 
ger ! ' " On this hint the discourse proceeds, gathering 
volume as it goes on, and ploughing a furrow that was 
not to be mistaken, through the whole ecclesiastical 
domain. A few sentences will explain the effect the 
sermon produced : — 

" Jesus felt his words were for eternity ; so he trusted them to 
the uncertain air : and for eighteen hundred years that faithful 
element has held them good, distinct as when first warm from 
his lips. Now they are translated into every human speech, and 
murmured in all earth's thousand tongues, from the pine-for- 
ests of the North to the palm-groves of Eastern Ind. They 
mingle, as it were, with the roar of the populous city, and join 
the chime of the desert sea. Of a sabbath morn they are re- 
peated from church to church, from isle to isle, and land to land, 
till their music goes round the world. These words have 
become the breath of the good, the hope of the wise, the joy 
of the pious, and that" for many millions of hearts. They are 
the prayers of our churches, our better devotion by fireside and 
fieldside, the enchantment of our hearts. It is these words that 
still work wonders to which the first-recorded miracles were 
nothing in grandeur and utility. It is these which build our 
temples and beautify our homes. They raise Our thoughts of 
sublimity ; they purify our ideal of purity ; they hallow our 
prayer for truth and love ; they make beauteous and divine the 
life which plain men lead ; they give wings to our aspirations. 
What charmers they are ! Sorrow is lulled at their bidding. 
They take the sting out of disease, and rob adversity of his 
power, to disappoint. ... 

" Looking at the word of Jesus, at real Christianity, the pure 
religion he taught, nothing appears more fixed and certain. Its 
influence widens as light extends ; it deepens as the nations 
grow more wise. But, looking at the history of what men call 
Christianity, nothing seems more uncertain and perishable. . . . 



154 THEODORE PARKER. 

The stream of time has already beat down philosophies and 
theologies, temple and church, though never so old and revered. 
How do we know there is not a perishing element in what we 
call Christianity ? Jesus tells us his word is the word of God, 
and so shall never pass away : But who tells us that our word 
shall never pass away ; that our notion of his word shall stand 
forever ? . . . 

"For centuries, the doctrines of the Christians were no 
better, to say the least, than those of their contemporary pagans. 
The theological doctrines derived from our fathers seem to have 
come from Judaism, heathenism, and the caprice of philosophers, 
far more than they have come from the principle and the senti- 
ment of Christianity. As old religions became superannuated 
and died out, they left to the rising faith, as to a residuary legatee, 
their forms and their doctrines ; or, rather, as the giant in the 
fable left his poisoned garment to work the overthrow of his 
conqueror. . . . The stream of Christianity, as men receive it, 
has caught a stain from every soil it has filtered through ; so 
that now it is not the pure water from the well of life which is 
offered to our lips, but streams troubled and polluted by man 
with mire and dirt. . . . On the authority of the written Word, 
man was taught to believe impossible legends, conflicting asser- 
tions ; to take fiction for fact, a dream for a miraculous revela- 
tion of God, an Oriental poem for a grave history of miraculous 
events, a collection of amatory idyls for a serious discourse 
'touching the mutual love of Christ and the Church.' They 
have been taught to accept a picture sketched by some glowing 
Eastern imagination, never intended to be taken for a reality, as 
a proof that the infinite God spoke in human words, appeared 
in the shape of a cloud, a flaming bush, or a man who ate and 
drank, and vanished into smoke ; that he gave counsels to-day, 
and the opposite to-morrow ; that he violated his own laws ; was 
angry, and was only dissuaded by a mortal man from destroying 
a whole nation. . . . What was originally a presumption of 
bigoted Jews became an article of faith which Christians were 
burned for not believing. . . . Matters have come to such a 
pass, that even now he is deemed an infidel, if not by implica- 
tion an atheist, whose reverence for the Most High forbids him 
to believe that God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, — 
a thought at which the flesh creeps with horror ; to believe it 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 155 

solely on the authority of an Oriental story, written down 
nobody knows when or by whom, or for what purpose ; which 
may be a poem, but cannot be the record of a fact, unless God 
is the author of confusion and a lie. •. . . Modern criticism is 
fast breaking to pieces this idol which men have made out of 
the Scriptures. . •. . Men have been bid to close their eyes at 
the obvious difference between Luke and John ; the serious dis- 
agreement between Paul and Peter ; to believe, on the smallest 
evidence, accounts which shock the moral sense and revolt the 
reason, and tend to place Jesus in the same series with Hercules 
and Apollonius of Tyana. . . . Men who cry down the absur- 
dities of paganism in the worst spirit of the French 'free- 
thinkers ' call others infidels and atheists who point out, 
though reverently, other absurdities which men have piled upon 
Christianity. So the world goes. 

" Almost every sect that has ever been makes Christianity 
rest on the personal authority of Jesus, and not the immutable 
truth of the doctrines themselves, or the authority of God, who 
sent him into the world. Yet it seems difficult to conceive 
any reason why moral and religious truths should rest for 
their support on the personal authority of their revealer, any 
more than the truths of science on that of him who makes 
them known first or most clearly. ... To judge the future 
by the past, the former authority of the Old Testament can 
never return. The ancient belief in the infallible inspiration of 
each sentence of the New Testament is fast changing, — very 
fast. One writer, not a sceptic, but a Christian of unques- 
tioned piety, sweeps off the beginning of Matthew ; another 
of a different church, and equally religious, the end of John. 
Numerous critics strike off several Epistles. The Apocalypse 
itself is not spared, notwithstanding its concluding curse. . . . 
If it could be proved that the Gospels were the fabrication of 
designing and artful men, that Jesus of Nazareth had never 
lived, still Christianity would stand firm, and fear no evil. . . . 
The history of the Christian world might well be summed up in 
one word of the evangelist, — ' And there they crucified Him.' 
. . . Measure Jesus by the world's greatest sons, how poor 
they are ! try him by the best of men, how little and low they 
appear ! Exalt him as much as we may, we shall yet, perhaps, 
come short of the mark. But, still, was he not our .brother ? 



// 



156 THEODORE PARKER. 

the son of man as we are ? the Son of God, like ourselves ? 
'. . . Who shall tell us that another age will not smile at our 
doctrines, disputes, and unchristian quarrels about Christiani- 
ty, and make wide the mouth at men who walked brave in 
Orthodox raiment, delighting to blacken the names of heretics, 
and repeat again the old charge, ' He hath blasphemed ' ? . . . 
In an age of corruption, Jesus stood and looked up to God. 
There was nothing between him and the Father of all. And 
we never are Christians as he was the Christ until we worship 
as Jesus did, with no mediator, with nothing between us and 
the Father of all. ... 

" Already men of the same sect eye one another with sus- 
picion and lowering brows that indicate a storm, and, like chil- 
dren who have fallen out in their play, call hard names. The 
question puts itself to each man, ' Will you cling to what is 
perishing, or embrace what is eternal ? ' This question each 
t must answer for himself. My friends, if you receive the 
notions about Christianity which chance to be current in your 
sect or church solely because they are current, there will 
always be enough to commend you for soundness of judgment, 
prudence, and good sense, — enough to call you Christian for 
that reason. But, if this is all your religion, alas for you ! The 
ground will shake under your feet if you attempt to walk up- 
rightly and like men. You will be afraid of every new opinion, 
lest it shake down your church ; you will fear, ' lest, if a fox 
go up, he will break down your stone wall.' If, on the other 
hand, you take the true Word of God, and live out this, nothing 
shall harm you. Men may mock ; but their mouthfuls of wind 
shall be blown back upon their own face. . . . And alas for 
that man who consents to think one thing in his closet, and 
preach another in his pulpit ! God shall judge him in his 
mercy, not man in his wrath. But over his study and over his 
pulpit might be writ ' Emptiness ; ' on his canonical robes, on 
his forehead and right hand, ' Deceit, deceit ! ' " // 

Imagine words, of which these are the fewest possible 
specimens, spoken on a public occasion, from a pulpit filled 
with ministers, to an audience composed in considerable 
degree of clerical people ! That it was listened to as quietly 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 157 

as it was, that only one man went out, that the other par- 
ticipants in the exercises made no immediate protest, is 
the wonder. But, if the shock was not felt instantaneously, 
it was felt soon. 

The opinions themselves advanced by the preacher were 
not new : many half entertained them ; more were dally- 
ing with them in an amateur way ; a few held them in their 
studies as literary speculations, but breathed no whisper of 
them out of doors. These were the first to take alarm. As 
birds who have been sailing pleasantly before the gentle 
wind hurry to covert when the air becomes agitated and 
the black storm comes up, so these excursionists crowded 
back into the shelter of the walled town when they saw 
the dust- cloud on the road before them. The most for- 
ward made most speed to retrace their steps. One gentle- 
man, a doctor of divinity, but a man of letters rather than a 
theologian, a radical in literature, but a conservative in senti- 
ment and usage, who once had said to him, that if Strauss 
had written a small book, in a single volume, in a popular 
style, he would have about done the thing for historical 
Christianity ; who on another occasion, when asked how 
he reconciled the conflicting accounts in the four Gospels, 
replied, " I don't try to reconcile them ; you can't tell 
where fact begins or fiction ends, nor whether there is any 
fact at all at the bottom ; " who on yet another occasion, 
when asked what he thought of Cousin's " Atheism," 
answered, " I don't know whether he believes in a God or 
not ; but I know that he has the ethical and religious 
spirit of Christianity, and is a Christian;" who yet once 
more, when challenged on his belief in the prophecies of 
the Old Testament, responded, that he did believe them 
true prophecies, but only as every imperfect thing is a true 
prophecy of the perfect, — this gentleman, when the ques- 
tion was no longer one of literature, but one of custom 
and institution and social tranquillity, left the ranks of the 
pioneers, and fell back upon the old guard. He had gone 
14 



158 THEODORE PARKER. 

out for a pleasant reconnoitre : he was not prepared for 
battle. The less distinguished felt quite at liberty to retire 
with the leaders, and fully justified in throwing an occa- 
sional stone from behind the breastwork. Man after man 
on whom Parker had reckoned for countenance was found 
wanting in the hour of need. 

. Boston rang with the controversy. The daily press 
took it up with such intelligence as it possessed. Here, 
before me, are clippings from the newspapers, preserved 
by Mr. Parker himself, who detected the hand of friend 
or enemy in the fluttering columns. " The Daily Adver- 
tiser " and " Evening Transcript " had communications 
from instructed pens, handling the matter with thoughtful 
discrimination. " The New-York Herald," then as now, 
trusting in the plenitude of its theological wisdom, passed 
final verdict on the merits of the controversy, and predicted 
the result. The religious papers, being more nearly con- 
cerned, — the " liberal " papers more especially, — did their 
best, probably, to be charitable ; but the proverbial bitter- 
ness of family quarrels found constant illustration in their 
issues : it was not possible to repress the rancor engen- 
dered by disappointment, mortification, chagrin, wounded 
partisanship, and broken associations. The writers seemed 
all to use steel pens. The words " infidel," " scorner," 
" blasphemer," were freely bandied about. Parker's name * 
was rarely spoken, except in connection with Voltaire, 
Paine, and other high priests of unbelief. His piety was 
called sentimentalism ; his professions of faith, hypocriti- 
cal; his learning, second-rate; his genius, apparent only 
in his rhetoric. Friendly writers were hardly more than 
apologetic : hostile writers alone forbore to practise the 
virtue of moderation. 

The effect of the sermon on the preacher's ecclesiastical 
relations was felt instantly. One after another of the 
"brethren" cancelled exchanges that had been agreed 
on, making the usual transparent excuses for postpone- 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 159 

ment. In July, the list had shrunk to twelve names ; and 
of those twelve, only a portion stood faithful. The press- 
ure that was brought to bear, both on the part of clergy 
and laity, against those who exchanged pulpits with the 
heretic, was greater than any but truly honest men could 
stand. Many were the revolvings and resolvings in minis- 
terial breasts. " Is he willing to exchange with Mr. 
Parker ? " " Would he, if asked, exchange with Mr. Par- 
ker?" were questions raised in church-committees when 
discussing a candidate. " What shall I do if Parker ap- 
plies for an exchange ? " was the question which the young 
minister anxiously put to himself. To exchange pulpits 
with Parker became the test of faith. The minister of a 
secluded parish where Parker's face was unknown might 
quietly treat his people to a sermon from an eloquent 
stranger whom they never suspected to be the arch-heretic ; 
but, in the vicinity of Boston, these clandestine, indulgences 
were impossible. A proposition to exchange from Theo- 
dore Parker made the heart sink, as the water in wells 
sinks at the coming of the earthquake. " Will your husband 
exchange with me next Sunday? " asked the proscribed man 
of the wife of one of his oldest friends. " I know he would 
with pleasure, but am quite confident that he has already 
made an engagement." — " Ought I to exchange with you ? " 
said to him one of his neighbors, a man of unusual popular- 
ity and courage. " You know best," answered Parker. " But 
some of my people will be offended if I do." — "Very well," 
rejoins Parker; "let it go, then: I don't press the matter." 
— " But what would you do in my case ? " said the ponder- 
ing brother. Parker answered, " I should think freedom 
of thought and speech worth defending at all risks, and 
should make a matter of duty of the business ; or, if I 
thought it of no value, I should say so." The argument 
was not conclusive. The exchange was not effected. The 
brother shared the prevailing opinion that the pulpit was 
not the place to vindicate freedom of thought and speech. 



160 THEODORE PARKER. 

When Convers Francis was deliberating whether or no to 
accept the theological professorship at Cambridge, the 
authorities there advised him, " under the circumstances," 
to cancel an existing engagement to exchange with Mr. 
Parker in Watertown. One strong and noble man in Bos- 
ton, who disagreed heartily with Parker's theological opin- 
ions, spoke of them in print as " shallow naturalism," 
described Parker as " the expounder of negative transcen- 
dentalism," in contrast with Mr. Emerson, who represented 
positive transcendentalism, and pronounced his system at 
once " ignorant and presumptuous," did, later, when the 
controversy was at its fiercest, announce to his congrega- 
tion his intention to exchange with Mr. Parker, on the 
ground that difference of opinion did not justify breach of 
fellowship ; that Parker was a Christian man and a 
devout minister ; and that intellectual liberty was too pre- 
cious to be sacrificed to a point of criticism. The an- 
nouncement caused a flutter ; the deed caused more ; but 
the minister's avowal of motives partially disarmed conse- 
quences. 

There were curious scenes at' the meetings of the Bos- 
ton Ministerial Association. The vexed question was the 
exchange with Parker. How far ought difference of opin- 
ion to prevent ministerial exchanges ? That question were 
easily answered if taken alone ; for Parker had himself 
carefully confined the difference of opinion to matters of 
learning and criticism. The man who said that every 
member of the Association, while he continued to be a 
member, had a right to claim an exchange from any and 
every other on the ground of fellowship, touched that 
point fairly ; but the same man, a college-mate of Parker's 
too, confessed the secondary importance of the point by 
admitting that he would not exchange if asked, because 
influential men in his congregation would be offended. It 
was suggested, that, if any member of the Association held 
views distasteful to the majority, he should withdraw : no 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 161 

one recommended that such a one be expelled. One 
frankly advised that the Association be broken up. The 
discussion was made ridiculous by a remark from the clerical 
wit of the body, that, if a minister had a comical twist in 
the face, that was reason enough for declining an exchange 
with him. There were but two or three men — there were 
two or three — who never failed to bear their testimony to 
the Christian character and essential Christian faith of 
Parker. Their names cannot be mentioned ; for the hu- 
mility that was ever their characteristic would be hurt 
thereby. They were always present when courage w T as 
demanded, but absent when praise was bestowed. So let 
it be now. 

The story of sectarian diplomacy is not pleasant ; but it 
must be told, that the true position of things may be 
understood. 

The journal, under date of Jan. 23, 1843, gives a full 
account (" to be printed in 1899, as a memorial of the 
nineteenth century ") of a meeting of the Association at 
which Mr. Parker was present by particular request, for 
the purpose of conference on matters of ecclesiastical 
concern. To print it as it stands would be unprofitable and 
in bad taste : the pith of it is given here in illustration of 
the ecclesiastical spirit of thirty years ago. The attend- 
ance was large, with a fair representation of both sides. 
After an early tea, the embarrassing business began with 
the customary disclaimers and apologies, and gracious 
devices for smoothing the way. Then the chairman, a 
man of culture and a gentleman, opened the debate 
by charging that Mr. Parker's book was, first, "vehe- 
mently deistical," using the word in the worst sense; 
and, second, subversive of Christianity as a particular 
religion. 

The book referred to was the " Discourse of Matters 
pertaining to Religion," published in the spring of 1842. 
It contained the substance of five lectures delivered in 
14* 



162 THEODORE PARKER. 

Boston during the previous autumn. In preparing them 
for the book form, the author considerably enlarged them, 
adding at the same time an over-abundance of notes, 
chiefly of reference, but preserving the brilliant, popu- 
lar style of the chapters. The volume has passed through 
four editions, is probably the best known of Mr. Parker's 
writings, and has exerted a wide and excellent influence. 
From time to time, instances of its converting power come 
up. A Western judge put it one Sunday into the hands 
of an idle, thoughtless youth, who was looking about for 
a pleasant Sunday time-killer. He took it reluctantly, — 
never, he said, having been able to read a religious book 
in his life, — and went with it to his room. By evening he 
had read it half through, and wished to keep it longer. A 
religious book like that he had never seen. If that was 
religion, he liked it. Some days after, the young man 
came to the judge, and said, "Will you sell me that book? 
I want to own it." — " No," said the judge : " I won't sell 
it to you ;. but I will give it to you." And the youth went 
off with the book, grateful. Years went by. The young 
man became prominent as a politician. A benevolent 
institution of the State needing patronage, which his 
friends were indisposed to give, he stood up and said, 
" You ought to give it. The institution is worthy of all 
assistance. I have been there, and examined it ; and, if 
there are any Christian people in the world, the managers 
of that institution are Christians." Through his influence 
the aid was obtained. About the same time, his old friend 
the judge met him, and asked how he got on with his re- 
ligious studies. " Oh, bravely ! I have that book now : it 
has been lent ever so many times, and read till it was 
read almost to pieces. I have had it strongly bound in 
leather to preserve it." In the preface to the first edition, 
the author wrote, " It is the design of this work to recall 
men from the transient shows of time to the permanent 
substance of religion; from a worship of creeds and 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 163 

empty belief to a worship in spirit and in life. If it sat- 
isfy the doubting soul, and help the serious inquirer to true 
views of God, man, the relation between them, and the 
duties which come of that relation ; if it make religion 
appear more congenial and attractive, and a divine life 
more beautiful and sweet, than heretofore, — my end is 
answered. I have not sought to pull down, but to build 
up ; to remove the rubbish of human inventions from the 
fair temple of divine truth, that men may enter its shin- 
ing gates, and be blessed now and forever." The lan- 
guage of the preface found comment in the incident above 
narrated. 

This was the book that the chairman at the meeting of 
the Boston Association pronounced " vehemently deisti- 
cal," and " subversive of Christianity as a particular re- 
ligion." The preface had then been written. It is fair to 
add, that the incident just narrated had not occurred. 
But this is a digression. We must return to the meeting, 
where Mr. Parker is under examination. The chairman 
having opened the discussion, the next who took up the 
word, after expressing agreement with the chairman in 
regard to the character of the book, submitted that they 
were not met for theological discussion, and tried to con- 
fine attention to matters personally at issue between Mr. 
Parker and the Association to which he still belonged. 
This was the important thing. Mr. Parker's opinion con- 
cerned them no more than another man's, except as he 
was connected with an ecclesiastical body which they 
helped compose, and for the character of which they 
were responsible. Mr. Parker had been guilty of conduct 
unbecoming a member of the body, inasmuch as he had 
said and printed things reflecting on the conduct of the 
brethren. 

Against this accusation Mr. Parker defended himself by 
protesting that he had never felt an ill-natured emotion, 
nor uttered an ill-natured word respecting them, on account 



164 THEODORE PARKER. 

of their withholden fellowship ; that he put his own inter- 
pretation on events as the rest did, but had never wittingly 
disregarded truth, or violated propriety. Touching the 
doctrines of his book, he did not see how they could fairly 
be called " deistical ; " for deists, if he knew any thing 
about them, denied the possibility of direct inspiration 
from God ; whereas he not only admitted the possibility 
of such inspiration, but claimed inspiration for all men in 
proportion to their quantity of being and the amount of 
their spiritual obedience. If he was a deist, he made a 
new class, whereof he was the sole constituent member, 
and which all others excluded. The other assertion, that 
his book was subversive of Christianity, surprised him still 
more ; for he had supposed it to be full of most essential 
Christianity. Christianity was one of three things : first, 
it was less than absolute religion ; or, second, it was equal 
to absolute religion ; or, third, it was absolute religion and 
something more. The first none of them would admit ; 
the second he maintained ; the third expressed their 
belief. If, therefore, they would specify what peculiarity 
Christianity added to absolute religion, would " point out 
the precise quiddity " that made absolute religion to be 
Christianity, they would do a great service to the unlearned. 
Would the chairman be good enough to instruct him ? 
That there was no curl of the lip, or gleam of deadly im- 
port from the steel-gray eyes behind the spectacles, at this 
moment, the reader may believe if he will. The chair- 
man reminded the questioner that catechising was not in 
order. 

Mr. Parker's personal affair with the Association was 
then taken up. In "The Dial" of October, 1842, he had 
published a remarkably plain-spoken, not to say caustic 
article, reviewing the proceedings of an ecclesiastical 
council that was called to adjust the relations between the 
Hollis-street Society and the Rev. John Pierpont, its pas- 
tor, accused of conduct unbecoming a clergyman in per- 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 165 

sistently remaining and preaching on topics exceedingly- 
distasteful to an influential portion of his people, more 
especially the vice, crime, and sin of manufacturing, selling, 
and promoting the consumption of intoxicating liquors. 
In his review, Mr. Parker had spoken of the " result in 
council " as a " Jesuitical document," thus reflecting on 
those who drew it up. The members of that council were 
prominent members of the Association. The charge was 
produced at length with much vehemence of manner. 
Mr. Parker had held up the council to the scorn and de- 
rision of mankind ; had represented the members of it as 
a set of hypocrites and double-dealing knaves ; had done 
his best to weaken their influence and ruin their character ; 
with much more of the same sort : to all which the ac- 
cused replied, that what he had written he had written, 
and for that was answerable ; that for other men's inter- 
pretations of what he had written he was not answerable ; 
what they charged he was at liberty to disclaim. To an 
accusation, that, in a sermon on the " Pharisees," he had 
meant to " take off " the Association, he replied, that, as 
the sermon was written a whole year before any trouble 
began, such an intention could not be imputed. So the 
debate went on from one point to another, to nobody's 
satisfaction. 

The talk came back to the book and its doctrines. 
Mr. Parker asks for the peculiarity of Christianity as a 
religion. " It consists in a recognition of the authority 
of Christ as authenticated by miracles." Mr. Parker re- 
plied, that, admitting the miracles (for argument's sake), 
he did not see how they made to be true or binding what 
was not so already, or how they increased the obligation 
to be true and dutiful. For his part, he had no philo- 
sophical objection to miracles (in his definition of them), 
but only demanded more evidence for them than for 
common events. He was by no means certain of the 
genuineness of the Gospels; and, if he were, could not 



1 66 THEODORE PARKER. 

take what was there recorded as literally true. "We 
have heard enough ! " exclaimed one of the examiners. 
" It is plain that Mr. Parker is no Christian ; for Chris- 
tianity is a supernatural and miraculous revelation." — 
" That may be," replied the defendant ; " but that is the 
point to be proved. Nobody accuses me of preaching 
less than absolute morality and religion. If they can 
exist without Christianity, what is the use of Chris- 
tianity? " — "But plainly Mr. Parker is no Christian. We 
cannot hold ministerial intercourse with a man who de- 
nies the miracles." — "Ah ! " said Mr. Parker, " that is not 
the trouble : that is but a matter of theological opinion, 
at the best. The difference began before the Hollis- 
street Council, before 'The Discourse of Religion:' it 
dates back to the South-Boston sermon. I have some 
curious letters on that theme which one day may be pub- 
lished. I was at first surprised at the effect that sermon 
had on the Unitarian ministers. I looked round to see 
who would stand by me in the pulpit ; and, in general, I 
have not been disappointed. In two persons I have been 
disappointed, — grievously disappointed." 

Chandler Robbins, a sturdy conservative, but a resolute 
peacemaker, and the kindest of men, hereupon inter- 
posed, and said, " Since Mr. Parker finds the feeling 
against him so general, / think it is his duty to withdraw 
from the Association." This touched the practical point. 
Approving voices joined in. Mr. Parker hurt their use- 
fulness, compromised their position, &c. : he should with- 
draw at once. But this Mr. Parker had no mind to do. 
They had put him on his mettle, had waked the reformer 
in him, and must allay the spirit as they could. For his 
own part, he assured them, were he alone personally con- 
cerned, he would retire with pleasure ; but a matter of 
much graver concern, even the right of free inquiry, was 
at stake. His retirement would be taken as a concession 
from him, and would be cited as a triumph for them : and, 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 167 

in that view of the case, his duty was to stay j and stay 
he would so long as the world lasted. 

Here was a new dilemma. The chairman said, " Were 
this a body of free inquirers, and not an association of 
Christian brethren, I should withdraw myself." — " Why, 
then, ask me to withdraw ? " said Parker. " Dr. Freeman 
was for many years a member of the Association, dis- 
agreeing with the rest so much in opinion, that they never 
exchanged with him." — "The case is not in point," was the 
rejoinder : " Dr. Freeman was not alone in being a Unita- 
rian among Trinitarians." — " Indeed ! Did they say so ? " 
— " Besides, the difference between Trinitarians and Uni- 
tarians is a difference within Christianity : the difference 
between the Association and Mr. Parker is a difference be- 
tween Christianity and no Christianity." — "But that is the 
very point in question. What is Christianity ? and what is 
it that puts Mr. Parker outside of it?" — "We do not deny 
that you are a Christian man, but only that your book is 
a Christian book." — " But the man belongs to the Associa- 
tion, and not the book ; and, besides, what is it that makes 
the book unchristian? " — "But, Mr. Parker, were you not 
a member of the Association, you certainly would not, 
with your known opinions, be admitted. Now, either you 
have changed your opinions since you came in, or you 
concealed them when you entered. Whichever be the 
case, you should withdraw." — "When I entered, my opin- 
ions were not asked, nor was I required to promise always 
to retain such as I held. If I do you an injury, you have 
the remedy in your own hands, and can pass a vote of ex- 
pulsion at any time. It is a new thing to make miracles 
the Unitarian shibboleth of Christianity. A few years 
ago, it was said in the Association that ' Christianity once 
rested on two great pillars, — Jachin and Boaz, prophe- 
cy and miracles. Dr. Noyes knocked down Jachin ; and 
George Ripley, Boaz : yet Christianity stood.' If I remem- 
ber right, it was the chairman who said that." — " True," 



1 68 THEODORE PARKER. 

said the chairman. "I do recollect something about 
Jachin and Boaz : but I did not say I was one of them 
who said Christianity did not rest on the two ; still less 
did I say that George Ripley had knocked the miracles 
down." 

There was more talk to the same effect. At length 
Bartol spoke warmly in praise of Parker's sincerity ; and 
Gannett, in his glowing, earnest way, responded ; and 
Chandler Robbins chimed heartily in. This was too 
much for the tender-hearted iconoclast. He burst into 
tears, shook hands with R. C. Waterston, the host, and 
went out. In the entry he met the chairman, who had 
left the room a minute before. The kind, courteous gen- 
tleman, whose professional animosities, however vehement, 
did not strike deep, shook him cordially by the hand, 
and hoped to have a visit from him soon. So the matter 
ended. The sharp arrows fell harmless to the ground \ 
the flushed faces became placid ; the angry looks died 
away. Two days after the meeting, Mr. Parker received 
the following letter, which shows how one good man 
felt: — 

From Chandler Robbins. 

Wednesday, Jan. 25, 1843. 
My dear Friend, — From the moment when you left the 
secretary of the Association on Monday evening, my heart has 
been yearning to unbosom itself to you. I felt most deeply the 
delicacy and the hard trial of your situation, and am constrained 
to say that you sustained yourself nobly. It would have been 
unjust to you to have been less frank than we were ; and yet I 
fear that my frankness seemed ungenerous and unfriendly. I 
knew not what I ought to say in my struggle between the love 
I do most truly bear towards you, and the desire that the whole 
truth of your position relative to the Association should be 
clearly understood, and that you should be fully informed con- 
cerning all the matters which the Association had in considera- 
tion respecting you and itself. I grieved that you left just as I 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 169 

had begun to give a declaration of my individual opinions and 
sentiments ; for I feared that I had been the cause of inflicting 
a wound, which my tongue should cleave to the roof of my 
mouth before it should intentionally give. Yet, after you had 
gone, I could more freely pour out those friendly and most 
affectionate sentiments, the flow of which would have been 
narrowed and restricted by your presence. And this I did, and 
felt better for having made a " clean breast : " indeed, I could 
not have gone to my rest that night if I had not. I am sorry, 
my dear friend, that we differ so much in our opinions on theo- 
logical questions. I am sorry that a brother whose feelings and 
whose motives I so much esteem and love should feel under the 
necessity of publishing doctrines, that, in my opinion, are incon- 
sistent with faith in Christianity as a special revelation, and in 
Christ as "the anointed of God," — doctrines whose avowal 
necessarily prevents an interchange of pulpits between us. But 
this is all I have against you. Against you ? no, between us, I 
mean, as a bar. All the other charges (those relating to the 
Hollis-street Council and the rest), however grave they may be 
held by others, do not weigh a feather's weight with me. I 
don't believe that you have said aught in malice against your 
professional brethren ; and, when I hear any of these attempting 
to make out a case against you on such grounds, I have not the 
least sympathy with them. 

It may be, my friend, that you are in advance of us all in 
theological knowledge, and nearer to the clear mount of truth ; 
and that the interval that separates us in this journey of immor- 
tality is the true gulf between us. It may be that your soul is 
purer and more virtuous than ours, and that this moral superi- 
ority lifts you out of the reach of our sympathy, and gives you 
a vision of the spiritual world which our medium of view is too 
dark to allow us to discern. Or, my brother, it may be that 
you have speculated too boldly ; that an intensely active intellect 
and much learning have carried you beyond the safe founda- 
tions of the eternal Word ; and that you have as far to return, as 
we to advance, before we can come to stand together on the 
Rock of ages. There are questions which abide the solution 
of the all-exposing hours and the judgment of the Spirit of 
light. I do not wish to attempt to answer them. I only wish 
to regard you without "a beam in my own eye," while both of 
15 



170 THEODORE PARKER. 

us shall be seeking humbly yet earnestly after " the truth as it 
is in Jesus." I hope that both may have more and more " of 
the spirit of Christ ; " that, like him, we may be true children 
of the Father, and true brothers of mankind. 

I cannot satisfy myself with this expression of my state of 
feeling towards you, being a sad bungler in the use of set forms 
of speech. I wish my breast had a window : I would go to 
you and sit in silence whilst you looked into it, if you would 
take the trouble to survey all its images which are associated in 
any manner with you. 

Believe me your sincere friend, 

Chandler Robbins. 

To Rev. Chandler Robbins, Boston. 

Plymouth, Sunday Morning, Jan. 27, 1843. 

My dear Friend, — I thank you truly for your kind note 
of Thursday last ; thank you for your sympathy ; thank you, too, 
for the caution you give me. I can live with no sympathy but 
that of the Infinite, and his still small voice saying, " Well 
done ! " but when sympathy, human sympathy, comes, it is 
truly welcome. You mistake a little the cause of my tears the 
other night. It was not a hard thing said by yourself or others. 
All might have said such as long as they liked : I would not 
have winked at that. It was the kind things said by Bartol and 
Gannett, and what I knew by your face you were about to say : 
it was this that made me weep. I could meet argument with 
argument (in a place where it is in order to discuss " the sub- 
jects " of a theological book which is talked of), blow with blow, 
ill nature with good nature, all night long ; but the moment a man 
takes my part, and says a word of sympathy, that moment I 
should become a woman, and no man. If Pierpont had been 
present, I should have asked him, at the beginning, to say no 
word of defence of me, but as many of offence as he liked. I 
felt afraid, at first, that a kind thing might be said earlier in the 
evening, and am grateful to the " brethren " that they said none 
such till late. But to leave this painful theme. 

I knew always the risks that I run in saying what was hos- 
tile to the popular theology. I have not forgotten George Fox, 
nor Priestley ; no, nor yet Abelard, nor St. Paul. Don't think 
I compare myself with these noble men, except in this, — that 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 171 

each of them was called on to stand alone ; and so am I. I 
know what Paul meant when he said, " At my first answer no 
man stood with me:" but I know also what is meant" when a 
greater than Paul said, " Yet I am not alone ; for the Father is 
with me." If my life ends to-morrow, I can say, — 

" I have the richest, best, of consolations, — 
The thought that I have given, 
To serve the cause of Heaven, 
The freshness of my early inspirations." 

I care not what the result is to me personally : I am equal to 
either fate, and ask only a chance to do my duty. No doubt 
my life is to be outwardly a life of gloom, and separation from 
old associates (I will not say friends). I know men will view 
me with suspicion, and ministers with hatred : that is not 
my concern. Inwardly, my life is and must be one of pro- 
found peace, of satisfaction and comfort that all words of mine 
are powerless to present. There is no mortal trouble that dis- 
turbs me more than a moment ; no disappointment that makes 
me gloomy or sad or distrustful. All outward evil fails off 
me as snow from my cloak. I never thought of being so happy 
in this life as I have been these two years. The destructive 
part of the work I feel called on to do is painful, but is slight 
compared with the main work of building up. Don't think I 
am flattered, as some say, by seeing many come to listen. 
Nothing makes a real man so humble as to stand and speak to 
many men. The thought that I am doing what I know to be my 
duty is rich reward to me : I know of none so great. Besides 
that, however, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I have 
awakened the spirit of religion, of faith in God, in some twenty 
or twenty-five men, who, before that, had no faith, no hope, no 
religion. This alone, and the expression of their gratitude 
(made by word of mouth, or made by letters or by a friend), 
would compensate me for all that all the ministers in all the 
world could say against me or do against me. But why do I 
speak of this ? Only to show you that I am not likely to be 
cast down. Some of my relations, two or three hundred years 
ago, lost their heads for their religion. I am called to no such 
trial, and can well bear my lighter cross. 

Perhaps I ought to say, that if the Association think I com- 



172 THEODORE PARKER. 

promise them, and injure them, and hurt their usefulness, they 
have the remedy in their own hands, and in one minute can vote 
me out of their ranks. At that I will never complain ; but, so 
long as the world standeth, I will not withdraw voluntarily while 
I consider rights of conscience at issue. I think, too, that, 
when I shall have more leisure (as I shall in a few weeks), I 
shall attend the meetings more frequently than heretofore. To 
withdraw voluntarily would be to abandon what I think a post 
of duty. 

Excuse this long letter, and believe me 

Truly your friend, 

Theo. Parker. 

This was noble on both sides, and generous. But 
Theodore Parker knew now that he must stand alone ; 
and he accepted the situation. Alluding to the bitter 
things written and said, he records in the journal, " All 
these things are disagreeable to me ; but they must be. 
I can stand alone. I know the stake I laid down, and 
am not unwilling to pay the forfeit. I doubt not I shall be 
forced to leave the pulpit in this way: the clergy will 
refuse to exchange with me. I shall not be willing to 
write a hundred sermons a year for a hundred and twenty 
people (half children) ; so shall leave it for something 
else. I shall not leave the calling if an opportunity 
occurs, never the deep love I feel for it, nor ever neglect 
an opportunity to utter my word, and pray with men." 
To a friend he writes, — 

" I feel it is a great work which I have undertaken. I 
know, that, so far as the ministers are concerned, I am 
alone, — all alone. But I have no ambition to gratify, and 
so neither fear the disgrace, nor covet the applause, they 
can give me. If I can speak the truth plainly to honest 
and earnest men, it is all I ask. The result is with the 
God of all ; and you and I have no cause to fear. I have 
received the ready sympathy of intelligent and religious 
laymen, and confess that it makes me feel strong." 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 173 

To Dr. Francis. 

Feb. 14, 1842. 

My dear Friend, — It is a great while since I had a letter 
from you ; and I confess the fault is my own. But now, as I 
can do nothing else, and, besides, want to write to you, I will do 
so. It is not often I have an hour for such a purpose ; since to 
write two sermons a week, and spend five days of the week in 
other matters, and get no sabbath on Sunday, though it may do 
well with stronger heads, yet goes hard with mine. I never 
cared much for the sympathy of other men, and never less than 
now ; but, once in a great while, I feel it is not altogether pleas- 
ant to stand alone, to be viewed with suspicion and hatred. 
Blessed are those men who can take things as they find them, 
and believe as the mob believes, and sail in the wake of public 
opinion. I remember you said a year ago, " He that defies pub- 
lic opinion, like the man who spits in the wind, spits in his own 
face." It is so. Better men have found less sympathy than I. 
I do not care a rush for what men who differ from me do or 
say ; but it has grieved me a little, I confess it, to see men who 
think as I do of the historical and mythical matter connected 
with Christianity, who yet take the stand some of them take. 
It is like opening a drawer where you expect to find money, and 
discovering that the gold has gone ; only the copper is left. 
This has been my fate very often. I put my finger on a min- 
ister, and "he ain't there." Somebody said the ministers were 
a very selfish set : I fear there is some little truth about it. 
Some think, and even say, they are glad at what has been done, 
and glory in freedom of thought, and all that sort of thing ; but 

it is all TALK, TALK, TALK. 

To Dr. Francis. 

June 24, 1842. 

My dear Friend, — There is one thing of some conse- 
quence to me, — though of little to you, — of which I want to say 
a word or two (I am not complaining of any one, nor writing a 
jeremiade to grieve you). The experience of the last twelve 
months shows me what I am to expect for the next twelve 
years. I have no fellowship with the other clergy : no one that 
helped in my ordination will now exchange ministerial courte- 
sies with me. Only one or two of the Boston Association, and 
*5* 



174 THEODORE PARKER. 

perhaps one or two out of it, will have any ministerial inter- 
course with me. " They that are younger than I have me in 
derision." Well, quorsum hac spectant? If I stay at Spring 
Street, I must write a hundred and four sermons a year for 
about a hundred and four people. This will consume most 
of my energies, and I shall be in substance put down, — a bull 
whose roarings can't be stopped, but who is tied up in the cor- 
ner of the barn-cellar, so that nobody hears him; and it is the 
same as if he did not roar, or as if he were muzzled. Now, 
this / will not DO. I should not answer the purposes of life, 
but only execute the plans of my enemies, — of the enemies of 
freedom of 'mankind. I must confess that I am disappointed 
m the ministers, — the Unitarian ministers : I once thought 
them noble ; that they would be true to an ideal principle of 
right. I find that no body of men was ever more completely 
sold to the sense of expediency. Stuff them with good din- 
ners, and freedom, theology, religion, may go to the Devil for 
all them. I believe the abolitionists and temperance-men are 
half right when they say, " The Church is a humbug; " and the 
other half of the right is, " the ministers are ditto.'''' Now, free- 
dom of thought and speech are either worth preserving, or they 
are not worth preserving. If the ministers think the second (as 
their life shows they do), let them say it plainly and manfully, 
that the public may no longer look to those clouds without rain : 
if they think the first, then something must be done. 

Now, I am not going to sit down tamely, and be driven out 
of my position by the opposition of some, and the neglect of 
others, whose conduct shows that they have no love of freedom 
except for themselves, — to sail with the popular wind and tide. 
I shall do this when obliged to desert the pulpit because a free 
voice and a free heart cannot be in " that bad eminence." I 
mean to live at Spring Street, perhaps with Ripley. I will 
study seven or eight months of the year ; and, four or five 
months, I will go about and preach and lecture in the city 
and glen, by the road-side and field-side, and wherever men 
and women may be found. I will go eastward and westward, and 
northward and southward, and make the land ring; and if 
this New-England theology, that cramps the intellect and pal- 
sies the soul of us, does not come to the ground, then it shall 
be because it has more truth in it than I have ever found. I am 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 175 

perfectly free of two things, — of fear and ambition. What 
I have seen to be false I will proclaim a lie on the housetop ; and, 
fast as God reveals truth, I will declare his word, come what 
may come. It grieves me to the very soul of my heart's life to 
think of leaving the ministry (which I love as few ministers 
love it) and this little parish ; but, if duty commands, who am 
I to resist ? If you have any word of advice to give me, I shall 
be glad ; and, in the mean time, rejoice in the new field of useful- 
ness opening its harvest to you. I hope you will teach the 
young men to be valiant, and fear not. 

Parker was brave; but, as has been said already, he was 
tender, with an immense capacity for suffering. He 
could battle long and well \ but to battle alone cost 
him dear. He wanted love ; and they from whom he had 
the best right to expect it failed him. He speaks of 
" impudent letters " from gentlemen in his profession who 
had been friendly. One or two of his old personal inti- 
mates changed their manner. That Mr. Andrews Nor- 
ton should receive him coldly was not strange ; but, 
when one who had been to him a bosom-friend made 
him a visit which deserved to be spoken of as "the 
most painful I ever received from any man," the bit- 
terness went to his soul. Those who called themselves his 
admirers and lovers had a singular faculty of remembering 
his severe words, and forgetting his grand ones : the spirit 
of excessive righteousness came upon them. Of the three 
that abide, charity seemed so immeasurably superior to 
faith and hope, that they stung the poor sore soul with 
admonitions against sarcasm, warnings from bitterness, 
beseechings to bear in mind the Christian law of love, till 
it is wonderful the high-strung nature did not become wild. 
That he was able to answer such letters as sweetly as he 
did is a testimony to his patience that should weigh some- 
thing against the biting indignation his kind censors 
deplored. It is so easy for people to forgive their neigh- 
bors' enemies ! 



176 THEODORE PARKER. 

From the Joztrna/, June, 1842. 

" I have done nothing for a month ; been stupid beyond meas- 
ure ; was never in such a state before. Never knew till now the 
sadness of that perpetual disappointment of hoping, hoping, 
hoping, and finding nothing come of that hope. But I sub- 
mit. I think I should complete the drama of my life well by 
dying next autumn, after the book is ended ; but can't tell if it 
will then end. External sadness is in store for me, no doubt ; 
but the light is all bright and beautiful within. I feel somewhat 
as Luther in that sad period of his life. . . . 

" Few would mourn at my departure. Some few souls who 
know me as I am would find a few tears in their eye, but wipe 
them soon (such is the nature of man) ; others who have heard 
my word with joy would look for another : but the many to 
whom my name has come would rejoice at my fall, that the 
churches might have rest for a season. Why am I spared ? 
I know not : not for what I enjoy. I asked but little from 
Heaven : that little I have not. I am disappointed, but not 
soured ; still cheerful. My smiles are few, but heartfelt. Let 
me but finish the work now in my hands, that my past life may 
have its fruits on earth, I will embrace death. I know not 
wherefore I am spared. There are some living that I cling to 
as to angels : these it were sad to leave. But " — 

The death of Dr. Channing awakens a similar strain. 
To a friend he writes, Oct. 5, " Dr. Channing is dead. He 
died at Bennington, Vt., of the typhus-fever, on Sunday 
afternoon. You know, as all do, that no man in America 
had done so much to promote truth, virtue, and religion as 
he. I feel that I have lost one of the most valuable 
friends I have ever had. I have known him well, and 
have been blessed by his counsels and liberal sympathy. 
His mind was wide, and his heart was wider yet. I know 
not what we shall do without him : but there are good men 
still left ; though never, it seems to me, could he be so ill 
spared. Well, he has done a good work. I am glad that 
he has lived thus long, and glad that he has gone to his 
reward." 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 177 

The journal betrays a sadder mood : " I have to-day 
heard of the death of Dr. Charming. He has fallen in the 
midst of his usefulness. His faculties grew brighter as age 
came on him. No man in America has left a sphere of 
such wide usefulness. No man since Washington has 
done so much to elevate his country. His life has been 
spent in the greatest and best of works. A great man and 
a good man has gone home from the earth. Why, O my 
God ! are so many left when such are taken ? Why could 
not I have died in his stead ? 

" To-day was the funeral of Dr. Channing. There was 
a strange combination of men to perform the services of 
the burial, — two of them bitter enemies, two others dif- 
fering heaven-wide from the doctor. It made me feel dis- 
agreeably to see them in the pulpit to speak of Dr. Chan- 
ning, — men whom I have heard mock at and deride the 
excellent man. But strange things meet in this world." 

Still he had the great consolers which never fail, — 
" Nature, full of God. It is new to me each year. Then 
there are my studies, the prospect of usefulness, endeavors 
to promote the public virtue." Work, the greatest of con- 
solers, does not desert him. His lectures in Boston and 
elsewhere cost him great labor. The toil on De Wette's 
" Introduction to the Books of the Old Testament " was 
not ended till the summer of 1843, having cost a world of 
toil, as well as more time and money than he could afford. 
His mind teemed with literary projects : schedules of indus- 
try fill pages of the journal. Studies in primitive Chris- 
tianity ; studies in church-history ; studies in the develop- 
ment of doctrine; studies in the dynasties of Egypt, — the 
dismal chronicles of conjectural kings ; studies in mytholo- 
gy, — Persian, Semitic, Christian ; studies in philosophy, — 
Bacon, Leibnitz, Plato, — occupy his severer days. In hours 
of comparative leisure, the poets of Greece — Tyrtaeus, 
Anacreon, Sappho, Orpheus, and Pindar — come to his side. 
In profounder moods of meditation, his companions are 



178 THEODORE PARKER. 

La Motte Fenelon, Madame Guyon, and John Woolman, 
in whose sober, deep piety his soul finds repose. Transla- 
tions from the German of mystic hymns reveal the still long- 
ings of his spirit for the infinite peace. His life was getting 
stormy on the surface ; but below reigned the perpetual 
calm. 

That he was able to preserve the even balance of his 
opinions attests the depth of his conviction. He would 
not be driven to extremes, or tempted to associate himself 
with views ' that lay invitingly adjacent to his own. The 
cool abyss of pantheism must have looked attractive to his 
fervid faith. The glowing diction of his books roused some- 
thing more than a suspicion that he had plunged into that 
shoreless sea. But he writes to a friend, " I am no pan- 
theist, nor ever was. I am no more troubled by pantheism 
or by anthropomorphism than at noonday the evening 
and morning twilight trouble me. The whole difficulty 
comes of attempting to get a logical and definite concep- 
tion of God ; but neither the head nor the heart will subsist 
on abstractions." He was accused of depreciating Jesus. 
To another friend he writes, " It seems to me, that, if we 
always obeyed the law God has written on our hearts, the 
decisions of reason, of conscience, and of faith, would be as 
infallible in their action as the instinct of the bee and the 
law of gravitation now are. But no man is in this state. 
We are not one with God as Christ was : so we are in 
doubt and fear. The best and wisest now feel this the 
most deeply. Jesus alo7ie felt none of it." He was called 
an enemy of Christianity. The journal testifies thus : 
" Christianity is a field on which may be raised the stran- 
gest crops, — wood, hay, and stubble, wheat and beans. 
The soil remains, the crop varies. . . . The time is coming 
when men will wonder quite as much at the Christianity of 
the nineteenth century as we wonder at that of the ninth 
century. . . . Christianity is progressive, because it is not 
positive> but natural : therefore Christianity is the hope of 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 179 

the world, the desire of all nations." He is blamed for 
making rash and hasty generalizations ; yet his letters to 
learned correspondents show how long and carefully he still 
entertained questions that his philosophy might have been 
pardoned for answering on d priori grounds, — such as the 
primitive condition of man on the planet, the descent from 
one or from many stocks, the order and law of human 
development, the rank of succession in the series of re- 
ligious stages. No suspicion of Darwinism, or of any 
other theory of evolution, seems to have entered his mind. 
It was urged against him that he impatiently discarded 
miracles ; but his refusal to sweep away stories of miracle 
on general grounds of theory, his discrimination between 
different classes of marvels, and his curious studies in the 
literature of the supernatural, — some of them very recon- 
dite, and all of them perfectly ingenuous, — refute these 
insinuations. His name was constantly associated with 
that of Thomas Paine ; he was tauntingly spoken of as 
Paine's disciple and successor : but when Mr. Horace 
Seaver invited him to take part in the celebration of 
Thomas Paine's birthday, Jan. 30, 1843, Mr. Parker sent 
the following reply : — 

West Roxbury, Jan. 14, 1843. 
Dear Sir, — Your favor of the 1 ith instant came in my ab- 
sence from home ; and I now hasten to reply to the invitation 
you offer me. With the views I entertain of Mr. Paine's char- 
acter in his later years, I could not, consistently with my own 
sense of duty, join with you in celebrating his birthday. I feel 
grateful, truly so, for the service rendered by his political 
writings, and his practical efforts in the cause offreedoinj though 
with what I understand to be the spirit of his writings on 
theology and religion I have not the smallest sympathy. 
I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Theo. Parker. 
Horace Seaver, Esq. 

There has been no intimation, during all these years, of 
failing or impaired vigor, except in the beginning of a 



1 80 THE OD ORE PARKER. 

letter to Dr. Francis, written from St. John's in August, 
1842 ; and there he merely says that he has gone down 
East for his health. The journal of Jan. 1, 1841, reports 
him as dull and in low spirits, but "well in body, tem- 
perate in meats and drinks." But the autumn of 1843 
found him so much spent from anxiety and toil, that a voy- 
age to Europe was recommended. His great work, the 
De Wette, was done and issued : other subordinate work 
was completed or dropped. He had passed through a 
critical passage in his career, and had reached a point in 
his professional life at which pause and retrospect were 
desirable. Anxious to survey his work from a distance, to 
give his mind rest by letting in a flood of new associations, 
to compare the ideas and institutions of the Old World 
with those of the New, to see some of the men whose 
thoughts had nourished him, and to visit some of the 
places which had been so long venerable to his imagina- 
tion, he accepted with gratitude the bounty which made 
the year's vacation possible ; and on the 9th September, 
1843, set sau " i n tne sn ip " Ashburton " for England, and 
put the Atlantic Ocean between himself and his past. 

To those who review now the period just covered, it is a 
surprise that there should have been so much feeling on 
so small occasion. Mr. Parker's slight unpleasantness 
with a score of gentlemen in Boston hardly justifies so 
much animosity on one side, or so much sorrow on the 
other. By the side of Savonarola's deadly fight with Pope 
Alexander, or Luther's grim battle with Rome, the Uni- 
tarian controversy looks paltry indeed. The shedding of 
ink was copious ; but it depleted only inkstands, and it 
blackened only paper. The sighs and wailings were un- 
called for ; weak • almost, it may be thought, childish. But 
Theodore Parker was no sentimental milksop : he was a 
brave, firm man, who, when tested, proved himself pos- 
sessed of heroic qualities. He could face jail, and even 
gibbet : steel he could have met with tougher steel. But 



THE UNITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 181 

no such fierce provocatives stirred his blood, or made the 
involuntary tears caused by the stings of insects an im- 
pertinence. Savonarola and his peers were driven back 
on their moral grandeurs, shut up in the citadel of their 
souls : they had at once the support and the consolation 
of their own heroism. Parker had none of this stimulus : 
unbuffeted and unchallenged, he had nothing to do, and 
nothing to bear. His friends weakened him, and his foes 
did not strengthen. He fainted because there was nothing 
to fight. 

Then, it must be said, he believed that a second refor- 
mation, more radical than Luther's, was at hand ; another 
conflict " between old systems and the Word," in which 
the soul was to be on one side, and Protestantism backed 
by Romanism on the other ; and he believed himself 
called to be a leader in the struggle. In the proscribed 
body of Unitarians, the advanced guard of liberalism, 
disciples of reason, friends of culture, he naturally ex- 
pected to gain allies and supporters. To find them blind 
and heedless, if not false, was a bad omen for the cause 
of truth, a sad revelation of the" adversary's might, and a 
bitter, presage of coming woes. What the Unitarians said 
or did was of small moment, in itself considered ; but, as 
indicating the temper of Christendom, it was profoundly 
significant. It told the new Luther that he was to stand 
literally alone \ and it told him this, not in tones that 
thrilled the blood, but in smooth accents which betrayed 
the lack of spiritual virility in the speakers, and implied 
the disbelief of it in the protestant, who had not even the 
comfort of being assailed. This was the situation as he 
viewed it. The view may have been mistaken, distorted, dis- 
tempered ; but it was honest : and they who can share it 
by an effort of imagination will not condemn as unmanly 
the personal sorrow, or the evil forebodings it brought 
with it. To a mind so exercised there is no medicine like 
travel in the great world of Europe, which quiets while it 
16 



1 82 THEODORE PARKER. 

strengthens souls like his ; for there, while many things are 
a-making, many things are made. The world's judgment is 
written large in the world's history^; and monuments of 
victory proclaim the final success of what seemed once to 
be hopeless struggle. 



CHAPTER IX. 



EUROPE. 



Mr. Parker's year in Europe was no holiday trip for 
sight-seeing: it was a serious pilgrimage. His object was, 
not to kill time, but to improve it ; not to evade work, but 
to prepare for it. He took mind and conscience with 
him ; had a clear notion of what was worth seeing, and a 
sense of his own deficiency, which was likely to make him 
receptive of the best things. No more intelligent or loyal 
American ever went abroad. But the Old World was to 
him a new world to be explored for treasure that his own 
continent did not possess. On the fly-leaf of his Euro- 
pean journal is a pencil-drawing of the little village church 
in West Roxbury, put there, it would seem, as a symbol 
and a remembrancer, to keep before him the simplicity of 
his vocation in presence of the rich cities and superb 
cathedrals he was to visit. On other leaves are lists of 
things to be seen in different cities, — in England, matters 
relating to his own and his wife's ancestors ; points in 
New-England history and biography to be looked up in 
the herald's office ; the Cudworth Papers in the British 
Museum ; Lord Howe's monument in Westminster 
Abbey: in London, the houses of Johnson, Franklin, 
Newton, and Milton ; the London University ; " see Hal- 
lam and Hennell ; ask Dickens about the writer on Amer- 
ican newspapers in ' Foreign Quarterly Review : ' in 
Germany, examine the schools in Saxony and Prussia, 

183 



184 THEODORE PARKER. 

the Herrnhiitter Establishment : in Switzerland, ascend 
Mont Blanc." These hints strike the key-note. 

The pilgrimage begins in New York, where he is de- 
tained three days, " The Ashburton " waiting for a wind. 
The bad weather does not keep him housed. He visits 
Lydia Maria Child, soon after known as the brilliant 
writer of " Letters from New York ; " and passes hours 
with Isaac T. Hopper, for whom he expresses the warmest 
admiration : " I have never seen a man who charmed me 
so much as a thoroughly Christian gentleman. He is fear- 
less, kind, industrious, frugal, and as true to moral prin- 
ciple as the needle to the star. I can never tell half the 
veneration I feel for him. It makes me strong to see 
him." In company with John Hopper he explores the 
wicked haunts of the city ; goes to Palmo's on Broad- 
way ; spends an hour at the " Five Points ; " inspects the 
" Tombs," and gets no better impression of the justice 
administered there, but a pleasanter one of the sanitary 
condition of the prison ; attends church at St. Paul's, and 
thinks the service unaffecting, "fussy." On the 9th the 
party go on board ship, accompanied by a few friends, who 
leave with them a fragrant blessing of peaches and flow- 
ers. The shore of America floats away in the sunset. 
" My friends are behind ; but one is with me to whom my 
mortal weal and woe are united. I often think I ought 
never to return ; yet perhaps I shall. Be this as Heaven 
appoints." 

Mr. Parker was a thorough landsman. He did not like 
the sea, nor the sea him ; but no sickness could repress 
his indomitable energy. Books failing, he tries thinking ; 
plans courses of sermons ; lays out schemes of profes- 
sional work, projecting his past labors into the future, 
with difficulty detaching his tenacious mind from its asso- 
ciations. He is disturbed by the cruel distinction between 
the cabin and the steerage and forecastle, — a hundred 
and sixty poor wretches in the steerage with almost no 



EUROPE. 185 

comforts, and thirty in the cabin living in luxury. " As the 
lion in the wilderness eateth up the wild ass, so the rich 
eat up the poor." One of the earliest entries in the jour- 
nal thus expresses the spirit in which the pilgrimage is 
undertaken : " I am now to spend a year in foreign travel. 
In this year I shall earn nothing, neither my food nor 
my clothes, nor even the paper I write on. I shall 
increase my debt to the world by every potato I eat, and 
each mile I travel. How shall I repay the debt ? Only 
by extraordinary efforts after I return. Those I design to 
attempt." Then he maps out a comprehensive scheme of 
labor, and commits it to paper, as if to make sure of fideli- 
ty to his vow. 

The voyage of twenty-five days ended at Liverpool. 
The business before him began at once. We cannot at- 
tempt to tell what he saw ; for he saw every thing there 
was on the surface, and much that lay beneath. His was 
a busy journal. It contains no fine writing, but records 
of places and people visited, and copious memoranda for 
thought. His route varied from the usual track (there 
was no beaten track then) just enough to take in a few 
spots of historical interest rarely visited by ordinary tour- 
ists. Liverpool and Manchester are prodigies to him of 
wealth and power. At Chatsworth he notices the " Chris- 
tus Consolator " from which the familiar print was taken. 
He gathers acorns from the ditch at Kenilworth, and 
plucks ivy from the walls of Leicester's pride. At Warwick 
he admires the Vandykes and Holbeins ; the picture of 
Charles I. on horseback ; the portraits of Strafford, Igna- 
tius Loyola, John Locke. At Stratford he copies curious 
inscriptions on tomb and chapel-wall ; one of which should 
be given here, if the combination of old English and 
modern hieroglyphics did not make exact transcription 
hopeless. At Oxford, wonders in quick succession astonish 
him, — the venerable buildings, the halls, pictures, and, 
above all, the books. In the Bodleian Library, not satis- 
16* 



186 THEODORE PARKER. 

fled to be a gazer, he must be a reader too ; and has a 
quiet little time with William of Ockham. The journal 
leaps from Oxford to Paris, plunging into the latter city 
with a devouring appetite which nothing can satiate. He 
calls a cabman, who proves to be a good fellow, takes com- 
passion on his ignorance of the place and the language, 
and points out to him every thing of interest. (That was 
a time when an American was a curiosity and an object of 
reverence.) His first destination was the Sorbonne, to pre- 
sent a letter to Victor Cousin, — the Sorbonne in the day- 
time, the Opera Comique in the evening. He admires the 
nobleness of the ancient churches, — Notre Dame, the Pan- 
theon, St. Sulpice, St. fitienne du Mont, — notes the curious 
non-observance of the Sunday, copies the queer names of 
the streets, marks the thrift and intelligence of the working- 
people. No public building is passed by. He looks in at 
the Morgue ; rambles about among the old book-stands on 
the quays. The great gallery of the Louvre overpowers 
him with its glory. There he sees the Venus of Milo, 
which he thus speaks of in connection with the Venus de 
Medici in Rome : " The toy woman came to her perfect 
flower in the Medicean Venus : that is all she is, — 
woman as a plaything, a bawble woman, voluptuous, but 
not offensive directly to the conscience. It is only after 
much reflection that you say, ' Get thee behind me J ' But 
the Venus of Milo is a glorious human creature, made for 
all the events of life. Imagine the Venus de Medici as a 
mother, as a sister, as a wife to some rich man, and his 
fortune perished ! Pah ! " 

He has time to peep into lecture-rooms, and take notes 
of lectures on all sorts of themes, from mysticism to min- 
eralogy, from the philosophy of Descartes to the first 
movements of life in the zoophyte. In the Jardin des 
Plantes he hears a lecture from Isidore Geoffrey St. Hi- 
laire on " Vultures," which contained interesting facts. 
He takes lessons in French, and practises writing the Ian- 



EUROPE. 187 

guage by describing in that tongue Pere la Chaise and 
other places of interest. Reading, theatres, walks about 
the city, occupy the leisure-hours. From the prayer-book 
in use at the Oratoire he copies the following remarkable 
version of the twenty-third Psalm : — 

"Tu m'es si bon que par ta Providence 
Parfums liqueurs, j'ai tout en abondance : 
Tant de douceurs accompagnent ma vie, 
Que mon bonheur est digne d'envie ; 
Et tu feras que dans ta maison sainte 
Je passerai tous mes jours en ta crainte." 

Hotel de Cluny, Porcelain Factory at Sevres, Muse'e 
d'Artillerie, Palais de Justice, Hotel de Ville, Hotel des 
Invalides, Bibliotheque Royale, the Gobelin tapestry, St. 
Germain des Pres, Palais des Beaux Arts, £cole des Beaux 
Arts, St. Denis, Versailles, each calls forth its appropriate 
emotion ; while the procession of eminent men that pass 
before him is too long to enumerate. 

He liked to haunt the Boulevards and the borders of 
the Seine, and recall the great events of French history ; 
seeing in the foreground the gay multitude, in the back- 
ground the awful events of times past, — the rivers of 
steel which once ran through the streets ; the blood which 
soaked down, and dripped into the catacombs. He stood 
on the site of the old Tour de Nesle, scene of mad revelry 
and murder; remembered the Palais de Thermes as the 
place where the soldiers hailed Julian emperor, and where 
the " Apostate," so called, lived all winter without fire, 
save once or twice in a brazier \ found where Abelard's 
house used to be. 

He went to the very roots of the old city. The Parini 
of Caesar's time came back. "The word 'par' is the 
same as ' bar,' I take it, and meant the limit between two 
great and hostile tribes of Celts. So the Parini were the 
borderers, the frontier-men, of old time, and had their 



1 88 THEODORE PARKER. 

stronghold on the island in the Seine with its two wooden 
bridges." Next came the Paris of Julian's trnne, next 
the Paris of the Merovingians, then of the Carlovingians. 
He gets at the curious fact, that the foundation of Notre 
Dame contains remains of an old Roman temple, with an 
inscription still on the stones. He must have been a 
tired man, when, after twenty-six days of this work, he 
took leave of the city, and set off by diligence for Lyons. 

At Lyons, " the city of massacres," he goes into the 
cellar where Polycarp "preached the gospel of Christiani- 
ty when it cost something to be a Christian ; " stands on the 
very grave of Irenasus ; sees the bones of the Christian 
martyrs piled up in a large vault; and in those memories 
forgets the " Boston Association, the heroes of the Thurs- 
day Lecture, and the trials, dangers, and sufferings of 

Brothers and ." Avignon comes next in order. 

There was the Palais des Papes, — convent, palace, prison, 
and castle in one. He stands (with what emotions !) in 
the secret chambers of the Inquisition; sees the holes 
where the instruments of torture were put up, the fire- 
place for heating pincers, the dungeqn where heretics 
were starved to death ; and recovers the failing conscious- 
ness of his identity in gratitude that those hideous days 
are past, and in resolve that the future shall be worthy of 
its opportunity. A day was more than enough for Aries ; 
and the most engaging thing about Marseilles was the 
view of the sea. Genoa then opens to him her princely 
gates, and welcomes him to romantic memories and de- 
licious art : it is a sadness to break away from it, and sail 
even by the " Charlemagne " to Leghorn. From Leghorn, 
two horses took him in a coach over the level, cultivated 
country, where women carried piles of fire-wood on their 
heads, and walked barefoot, in order to save their coarse 
hob-nailed shoes, to Pisa. Here the Duomo, Baptistery, 
Leaning Tower, Campo Santo, call forth due notice, and 
the beggars due comment ; but here he finds other curious 



EUROPE. 1S9 

things, — paintings, relics, historical sites, which travellers 
do not commonly know enough to ask about. 

Pisa introduces the pilgrim to Florence, the fascina- 
tions of which are so engrossing, that he stays there ten 
days without making a record in the journal. There is 
the San M arco, full of reminiscences of Savonarola. There 
is the Medici Chapel with Michael Angelo's " Day and 
Night," the tower of Galileo, the cathedral, the baptistery, 
the seat where Dante contemplated the beautiful bell-tow- 
er. There are the great churches on which architects and 
artists had lavished their genius. There is the Santa Croce, 
where the illustrious Florentines are buried, the exiled and 
persecuted sleeping in peace at last. There are the mira- 
cles of art, — the works of Raphael, Titian, Del Sarto ; the 
Apollo, the Laocoon, both of which rather disappointed 
him at first ; the great portraits, Julius II., Leo X. ; the For- 
narina, which surpassed his expectation ; the Seggiola, — 
" What a painting ! God in heaven, what a painting ! " 
There is a famous library too, the Laurentian, with treas- 
ures of literature. What is there not in Florence for one 
with Parker's eyes ? But Florence, too, must be left. He 
returns to Leghorn, and takes vessel for Naples. Of 
course, nothing of interest is omitted. He ascends Vesu- 
vius, and goes so near the crater, that he is in danger 
from the masses of melted stone which fall continually. 
A few of the smaller pieces hit him on the shoulder. Baias, 
Puteoli, Pozzuolo ; the places " where the old Romans rev- 
elled in their Titanic lust, poisoned one another, framed 
plans or conspiracies which affected the welfare of the 
world ; " the spots where Cicero had his villa, where Hor- 
ace wrote his poems, where Pollio fattened fish for his ta- 
ble with refractory slaves, where Virgil, by tradition, was 
buried, — all these he visited. But here, as everywhere, 
he made a study of the town itself, the population, taxes, 
cost of living, statistics of traffic, &c. ; having an eye for 
the humanity in the streets, as well as for the art in the 



190 THEODORE PARKER. 

galleries. Herculaneum and Pompeii interested him so 
much, that he made a diagram of them. At the theatre 
only, he went to sleep. 

From Naples to Rome by diligence, — a tiresome drive, 
with lumbering vehicle, jaded horses, clumsy conductor, 
and frequent delays from trivial causes. The most beauti- 
ful part of the scenery was passed in the night. The early 
morning gives sight of Gaeta, the ugly cattle on the Pon- 
tine marshes, the desolate Campagna, the wretched people, 
the dirty villages. As the day wears on, the classic spots, 
one after another, appear. He is on the great road which 
Hannibal and Fabius Maximus and Sylla travelled with 
their armies. On either side the plains had been battle- 
fields. Caesar and Pompey and the triumvirs had taken 
their turn of victory and defeat on these vast wastes. 
The traveller has Horace in his hand, and follows the 
poet in his description of the spots passed. Along the Ap- 
pian Way, in sight of the mounds that covered fine villas 
of wealthy nobles, past tombs and aqueducts, they roll 
on from Albano, and come within view of Rome. The 
gate was passed at half-past three o'clock on a March 
afternoon. Close by famous buildings they drove to the 
Dogana. In an hour's time, after applying in vain at 
seven public-houses, lodgings were found at 70 Via del 
Babbuino, — two pretty little rooms on the street, first floor, 
and one in the rear, for twenty dollars per month, service 
included. It was the 20th of February. Rome was in the 
height of its glory and gayety. It was carnival-time. The 
party took a coach, and "rode round to see the nonsense. 
Mem. — The beggars in the midst of this festivity, their hid- 
eous deformity, crippled, &c. Gave half a paul to one. Beg- 
gars are sad enough objects at all times : on a festal day 
what shall we think of them ? Men throw flour at each oth- 
er, and the rich spoil the coats of the rich with what would 
have gladdened the heart of the beggars. 'Whatsoever 
ye would that men should do unto you.' Ah ! this is the 



EUROPE. 191 

place where Paul was beheaded. They would crucify Christ 
if he were to come here or to Boston. God bless men ! 
they can't crucify Christianity. In the evening L. and I 
went to the theatre, — the everlasting Polichinello." 

This homebred rustic has an eye for art. In the Vati- 
can, the palaces, the churches, he picks out the gems, and 
yields to them the homage of unfeigned admiration. The 
beauty of the Apollo Belvedere comes to him now. The 
Laocoon, which disappointed him in Florence, holds him 
by its wonderful spell of suffering. The silence of the 
agony impresses him as it does everybody ; but everybody 
does not get at the artist's secret as he does. The point 
that Lessing makes so admirably in his famous essay — that 
the marble description of a cry would be fatal to a work 
of pure art — occurs to Parker, who makes no allusion to 
Lessing, and probably had never seen his essay. Michael 
Angelo's " Moses " is to him a wonderful thing : " He 
looks as if he could compile or devise laws to hold a na- 
tion for thousands of years, and seems armed with the 
deep insight into causes which marks the philosopher, and 
the ready faculty to grapple with effects that makes the 
practical leader." Michael Angelo is his master. Ra- 
phael now and then disappoints, as in the " Galatea ; " 
Domenichino seldom meets anticipation; Leonardo and 
Titian surprise him in their greatest paintings by their 
perfect accomplishment and subtle feeling. There must 
be a soul in work, if he is to be pleased. In architecture, 
the simple grandeur of the temple is more impressive to 
him than any magnificence of style, or sumptuousness of 
decoration. 

But it is as a Christian minister, after all, that the pil- 
grim sets himself to study Rome. The Christendom of 
fifteen centuries is there. The most imposing part of liv- 
ing Christendom is there also. He is there for a few 
weeks : he must not miss his opportunity. Well equipped 
with learning, well furnished with understanding, singular- 



192 THEODORE PARKER. 

ly endowed with candor and ingenuousness, with a schol- 
ar's reverence for the past, a wise man's charity for the 
present, a philosopher's trust in the future, a disciple's 
humility, a reformer's earnestness, he addressed himself 
to the task of studying the religion of Rome. One of his 
first expeditions was to the Coliseum ; and thus his im- 
pressions are recorded : " It is more perfect than I feared. 
It has now been consecrated to keep it from the devas- 
tations of the barbarians of modern Rome. At the en- 
trance is a cross, with a sign-board which promises forty 
days' indulgence to all who will kiss the cross. In the 
very centre of the amphitheatre is another cross with an- 
other direction, — that he who kisses that shall have plenary 
indulgence for two hundred days. If Seneca or Cicero 
were to come back, he would think the world had made 
little progress in the theory of religion, whatever had been 
done in the practice of it. Sometimes a monk preaches 
here. What recollections come up ! — the gladiators, the 
wild beasts, the Christians, the emperors, the armies ; 
Rome fallen ; the new Rome, and that, too, fallen. Oh ! 
one could move the stones by preaching here. I could 
not help looking at the place professionally, and thinking 
it would be a fine place to preach Parkerism in." 

The churches are a study, — St, John Lateran, famed 
for the twelve great councils held there. " In the church 
is the table on which Christ and the twelve took the last 
supper. Here, too, are the heads of St. Paul and St. Pe- 
ter. Here, also, we saw the actual well of Samaria be- 
tween two pillars from Pilate's house in Jerusalem ; the 
stone on which the soldiers cast lots for Christ's vesture ; 
the pillars between which Pilate stood when he told the 
people to take the Christ and crucify him ; the column 
that split asunder at his crucifixion (it is split asunder 
quite uniformly the whole length; it is about a foot in 
diameter, and ten feet long) ; and four columns support- 
ing a slab which shows the exact height of Jesus, — just six 



EUROPE. 193 

feet ; and not far off is the Santa Scala, a flight of twen- 
ty-eight marble steps, which Jesus descended when he 
went to be crucified. It is not lawful for any one to walk 
up them : penitents ascend on their knees. We saw sever- 
al going up ; but they are poor folks, for the most part. At 
the head of the stairs is a chapel, containing a picture of 
Jesus when twelve years old, painted by St. Luke, — the 
only one from that artist. 

" Went to St. Peter's, the cupola, the ball, and all that is 
commonly seen here. The Inquisition near by, with four 
or five hundred inmates. The guide says they are not put 
to the torture in these days ; but they never come out 
again, and are never seen any more or heard of." Santa 
Maria Maggiore : " Exceedingly rich, but not imposing ; 
not a religious architecture. It seems to me the modern 
Unitarians would like this style. It is clear, actual, the 
work of logical and demonstrative heads, wholly free 
from mysticism. The fragments of Christ's cradle are 
preserved here ; and the miracle of the snow that covered 
the Esquiline Hill on the 5th of August, 352." 

Catacombs. — " Went to the catacombs in the vicinity 
of St. Ignese, a little way out of the city. Entered the 
chapels with the little caves on each side, each large 
enough for a single body. These once contained the 
ashes of the martyrs. In some of the chapels the ceiling 
was covered entirely with paintings. There was the Good 
Shepherd ; here Christ preaching, though but a child ; here 
the Hebrew youths in the flames ; here Daniel in the lions' 
den; here the whole story of Jonah, emblematic of the 
death and resurrection of Christ ; and here the miracle at 
Cana, the symbol of transubstantiation, and many more. 

" I am confirmed in my opinion, that, long before Con- 
stantine, the Church had departed from the ideal sim- 
plicity of the primitive state so often contended for by 
Protestants. Indeed, I am now more than ever persuaded, 
that, as Christ gave no form, the first one used by the 
17 



194 THEODORE PARKER. 

apostolic churches was much less simple than we fancy. I 
shall never forget the impression left on my mind by this 
visit. Yet, as I walked about here, I could not but think 
how easy it must have seemed, and have been too, to bear 
the cross of martyrdom. The recollection of Christ, of the 
apostles, the certainty of the prayers and best wishes of 
men of earth, the expectations of heavenly satisfaction, — 
all would conspire to sustain the spirit, and make the man 
court, not shun, the martyr's death. 

" Father Marchi, a priest who has devoted his life to 
the study of the catacombs, went with us, and explained 
every thing ; showed us curiosities without stint relating to 
the early Christians ; bottles of dried blood of the martyrs ; 
instruments of torture ; images of Christ, of the Virgin, &c. 
I saw proofs enough that some of the alleged ' corruptions 
of Christianity' date back to 107 A.D. The worship of 
the Virgin can be traced nearly as far ; that of the invoca- 
tion of saints for the dead, quite to that very year. I 
think you find the ceremony of saying mass, as at present, 
pretty distinctly traced back to the beginning of the 
second century. In the chapels of the catacombs are 
frescoes, painted in the second century (at the latest, in 
the early part of it), representing the miracle of Cana in 
such conjunction with the saying of mass, that it shows 
a distinct allusion to the transformation of the bread and 
wine into the body and blood of Christ ; at least, they 
say so." 

On Ash Wednesday he visits the Sistine Chapel to 
see the pope celebrate mass in presence of the cardinals 
and other church dignitaries. " The music was fine. The 
ceremony did not impress me at all. It brought to my 
recollection Him of Nazareth, whose picture hangs over 
the altar. I remembered what he said of the temple, of 
the chief priests, &c. The whole filled me with compas- 
sion, and drew tears from my eyes. Is it always to be so, 
and in Christian Rome, by the head of the Church ? The 



EUROPE. 195 

ceremony of kissing the pope's hand or foot, the kneeling 
before him, and burning incense, and all in the name of 
the carpc?itcr 's son at Nazareth, — it is quite too bad. I 
honor the learning, the zeal, the devotion, the humanity, 
there is in the Catholic Church ; but this nonsense is too 
much for me. As if God laughed at the whole, there was 
the awful fresco of Michael Angelo representing the Last 
Judgment ; and here, too, was Aaron, with the Hebrews 
worshipping the golden calf; and Moses in indignation, 
breaking the tables he had just received ! There is no 
irony like that of Nature." The music rarely fails to 
touch him ; the ceremony never succeeds. As the pope 
blesses the palms, he compares the violet dresses of the 
cardinals with the garments that were once stripped off 
the peasants' backs, and laid beneath the ass's tread. The 
passionate music of Allegri's " Miserere " will not drown 
his spiritual remonstrance against the haughtiness of the 
assembly ; and as, standing on the piazza, he looks at the 
illuminated dome of St. Peter's, " like a story from 
the ' Arabian Nights,' " the mendicants in the square sug- 
gest the number of the " honest poor for whom no candle 
burns all the year." 

Still he has a heart of charity. At St. Peter's he hears 
the sweet music at vespers, and smells the incense : the 
music, " the perfection of music, — it would stir the heart 
of a statue to hear it. The children were gathered 
together (i.e., a few children) to be instructed. Half a 
loaf is better than no bread ; and I make no doubt the 
essentials of Christianity are inculcated." 

He was presented to the pope, who stood in the simple 
dress of a monk, with his back against a sort of table, and 
talked a little about the state of Rome, the English lan- 
guage in America, the famous polyglot cardinal at the 
Propaganda. He looked kindly on the visitors, made a 
sign, and they withdrew. 

Mr. Parker made serious efforts to understand the reli- 



196 THEODORE PARKER. 

gion of Rome, not from the monuments only, or the cere- 
monies, the superstitions, and the dumb-shows, but from 
the men who interpreted and administered it. He visits 
under the best guidance the College of the Propaganda, 
where men of every nation, tongue, and complexion, are 
instructed in the faith, and prepared to proclaim it to all 
lands in their own speech ; and he visits the Industrial 
School for Poor Girls ; the Conservatory of the Virgin of 
Sorrow, founded by Cardinal Odescalchi. Letters of in- 
troduction make him acquainted with men eminent in the 
Church for piety, goodness, and learning ; with Dr. Grant, 
Bishop Baggs, Father Glover, Cardinal Acton. Bishop 
Baggs and Father Glover favor him with long conversa- 
tions on the doctrines and institutions of the Church ; he 
not disputing with them, but questioning, to be sure of 
understanding their position. " I feared that I might have 
sometimes done them an injustice ; but I think I have not. 
I have found them universally kind, perfectly free from 
cant. They don't draw down the corners of their mouth, 
nor talk through their nose, nor roll up the whites of their 
eyes, and say ' O-o-o-o ! ' There is much about the 
Catholic Church that I always liked, — its music, archi- 
tecture, paintings, statues. Besides, there is a long list 
whom I truly reverence enrolled on its calendar. The 
Church is democratic (in the good sense) in appointing 
its saints. None are made saints except for perso?ial 
qualities ; not for wealth or birth or power, but goodness. 
What if' they do pray to the saints, as the Protestants say? 
or through them, as they say ? The true God, I take it, 
would as lief be called St. Cecilia as Jehovah ; and a 
true prayer must be acceptable to the true God. I told a 
Jesuit father so the other day : but he said that was an 
odious doctrine ; it justified idolatry. 

" The Catholic Church practically, I think, cultivates 
the feelings of reverence, of faith, of gentleness, better 
than the Protestant churches ; but I can't think it affects 



EUROPE. 197 

the conscience so powerfully, and I know that at present 
it does not appeal to the reason or practical good sense. 
While Bishop Baggs says, ' Out of the Catholic Church Is 
no salvation] he adds, ' but 7io?ie Is damtted except for his 
oil> n fault ; and many may be in the soul of the Catholic 
Church who are not in its body.' God only knows who. 
I wish I could think better of the priests here. 

" It is difficult to say what is the present condition of 
the Catholic Church : they are certainly making great ex- 
ertions to extend their faith in all parts of the world. 
The present pope is a pious and excellent man, I should 
judge, — one that fears God, and loves mankind; believ- 
ing himself fallible as a man, but infallible as head of the 
Church ; and his character has had an influence on the 
Church. I should be sorry to see the Catholic Church 
fall now ; for which of the Protestant sects could take its 
place ? Perhaps it will outlive them all. If I wanted 
to convert a fop to Christianity, I would send him to 
Rome; but, if I wanted to put a philosopher in the 
Catholic Church, I would send him anywhere but to 
Rome." 

It is the custom of young people, on the eve of their 
departure from Rome, to drink from the Fontana di Trevi. 
The last night Theodore Parker was there, he walked out 
to the aqueducts (it was full moon) ; took a last look 
at the Coliseum, where on a former midnight he had seen 
an owl light on the cross, and hoot ; viewed for the last 
time the Capitol, the columns, and bade them all farewell : 
perhaps he thought never to see them again, but was grate- 
ful for the sight once in his life. The next day (Thursday, 
the nth of April), at one o'clock, the diligence passed the 
Porta del Popolo, crossed the Milvian Bridge, and trav- 
elled over the old Flaminian way toward Bologna. 

On the 20th he is in Venice. "Venice is a dream of 
the sea. Occidental science and Oriental fantasy seem 
to have united to produce it. A pagan Greek might say 
17* 



198 THEODORE PARKER. 

that Neptune, drunk with nectar and Aphrodite, slept in 
the caves of the sea, and dreamed as he slept : Venice 
is the petrifaction of his dream. The sun colors curiously 
the walls of her palaces and churches : it seems as if 
their wealth had run over, and stained the walls. What a 
history was hers ! what a destiny in the economy of the 
world ! Who that lived in the time of the second crusade 
could ever have f aniced her present lot ? Yet who knows 
that her ports shall not again be full of the wealth of the 
East, and merchants from afar traffic with her ? Let 
canals and railroads do their work, and she may live 
again." 

From Venice by rail to Padua, and thence by diligence 
to Vicenza ; Thence by vetturino to Verona ; from Verona 
over the Brenner Pass to Innsbruck, — the lovely, romantic 
town, surrounded by picturesque mountains, where the 
wolves could then be heard by the villagers talking 
together at night. He takes time to see the twenty-eight 
colossal statues of royal persons, in bronze, that sur- 
round the tomb, surpassingly rich in carving, where the 
Emperor Maximilian was not buried. From Innsbruck to 
Munich, of which small mention is made. From Munich 
to Regensburg ; the funny little towns on the way being 
" done " in ink on the pages of the journal, there being 
no better use for the space. From Regensburg by datnpf- 
schiff on the Donau to Passau and Lintz, the same indus- 
trious but not artistic pen making caricatures of the ugly 
faces on the boat. The curious would not be much 
enlightened in regard to the scenery on the Danube by 
these sketches. At last, on Tuesday the 7th, at about 
seven o'clock in the evening, he is at the " Golden Lamb " 
in Vienna. The city struck him as the most frivolous 
city in Europe, — elegant, easy, heartless : only St. Ste- 
phen's seemed to redeem it ; and that belonged to an- 
other age. " All the mediaeval cities are serious : even 
the Paris of the middle age is serious, almost sad-look- 



EUROPE. 199 

ing; but the modern Paris is far less frivolous than 
Vienna. For Vienna there is no life of science, art, litera- 
ture, or commerce ; only politics and pleasure." But he 
enjoyed the pictures in the gallery of Count Esterhazy 
and the Royal Gallery, — the Murillos, Raphaels, Peru- 
ginos, Paul Veroneses. The famous Correggios he ad- 
mired less. The journal mentions nothing of this ; only 
the music of Strauss, which seemed singularly suited to 
the city. Twelve years afterward he advised friends in 
Vienna not on any account to miss the paintings, mention- 
ing the particular gallery in which his favorites hung; 
but the music of Strauss impressed him as more con- 
genial to the place, — " rich, rhythmic, graceful : " it re- 
minded him of Paul Veronese's pictures, " examples of 
a joyous festivity of well-bredness." The drive from 
Vienna to Prague had few incidents, though the blithe 
pencil made its quaint observations on the page of the 
journal. Prague was interesting. The ancient city, type 
of the middle ages ; the Jews' quarter ; the venerable He- 
brew burial-place ; the antique synagogue, the walls 
whereof are black with grime, because to clean them 
might erase the name of God, supposed to be inscribed 
somewhere on the stone ; the monumental bridge ; the 
grotesque legends of St. John Nepomuck ; the palaces ; 
the Wallenstein Fortress ; the Black Tower and the White 
Tower ; the queer streets ; the odd churches, saturated with 
the superstitions of hundreds of years ; the memorials 
of Huss and Jerome and the religious wars, — got hold 
of Parker by his faculty of veneration. He bought some 
Hebrew books in a Jewish bookstore surprisingly cheap. 
He could have bought the complete Talmud in twelve vol- 
umes, large paper, a fine copy, for forty gulden. Twelve 
days are all he can spare for Dresden : but there are 
Raphael's divine " Madonna," and Titian's " Tribute 
Money," and Veronese's " Marriage of Cana," and Hol- 
bein's " Virgin," and the Dutch masters ; and there in the 



200 THEODORE PARKER. 

" Green Vaults," more interesting than the jewels, inter- 
esting to him as those are, are the ring and drinking-cup 
of Martin Luther, and the crucifix of John of Bologna. 
On the evening of April 18 he is in Berlin. 

" Do you know," he writes to Dr. Francis, " what sort 
of a place Berlin is? No? Imagine a sandy plain 
forty miles square, with one or two nasty rivers trying to 
get through it, but doubtful all the time that they had 
taken the right way ; in the centre of this plain, and on 
the banks of the most doubtful of the rivers, imagine a 
great number of brick houses covered with stucco, and a 
few churches, and so forth, of the same material ; then 
imagine one street sixty or seventy feet wide and two 
miles long, with another street two hundred feet wide and 
one mile long, having four rows of lime-trees in it, a foot- 
walk in the centre, and two carriage-ways, one on each 
side ; then add some hundreds of other streets, all 
straight, — and you have a conception of Berlin. For the 
moving part of it, imagine a thousand hackney-coaches, 
the drivers with cows' tails on the top of their caps, a 
hundred private carriages, four hundred drays for beer, a 
hundred and fifty carts and wagons for other business, 
thirty thousand soldiers, sixteen hundred and fifty stu- 
dents, a hundred and eighty professors, a king, Baron 
Von Humboldt, and two hundred and seventy thousand 
others ; imagine the king with a belly like Uncle Tom 
Clarke, the students with mustachios, the professors lec- 
turing on Dagesh lene, the king ' counting out his money,' 
Baron Von Humboldt sleeping on his laurels, and the two 
hundred and seventy thousand smoking, walking, weav- 
ing, making pipes, and getting dinner, — and you have 
an idea of the personate of Berlin." 

The days here are given up to literary matters, hearing 
lectures, visiting celebrities, studying the institutions of gov- 
ernment, the habits and morals of the people, inspecting 
schools, collecting statistics of education, and such like. 



EUROPE. 201 

A day in Potsdam, — to most travellers, much the most 
agreeable feature in a short sojourn in Berlin, — for some 
reason, gave him no satisfaction : he counted it a day 
wasted. Sans Souci was not to his taste. Of the Mu- 
seum he hardly says a word ; of the music and musi- 
cians, who gave lustre to the flat city, not a word : but of 
the scholasticism of the place there is much. Hengsten- j 
berg and Twesten and Marheinecke and Vatke and/ 
Michelet and Boeckh and Schelling, — he heard them all, 
each in his own department of philosophy, history, antiqui- 1 
ties, or philology. Hegelianism was in the ascendant. 
Here is a characteristic description of a lecture by a 
young disciple of the school (Werder) on Logik : "The 
point at issue was Bestimmtheit (the definite ground or 
substance of thought). He got into a great passion and a 
desperate fix with his Bestimmtheit, trying, as I dimly 
gathered, to discover the Ur-Besti?nmtheit (the funda- 
mental foundation). He said in Bestimmung there was 
Daseyn (being) and Realite. Hereupon a fat, chubby 
student, with cheeks like one of your classmates, evi- 
dently his ma's darling, tried hard to conceive the dif- 
ference ; but, after numerous ineffectual attempts, gave it 
up in despair. Then said the professor, ' In Daseyn 
there is Etwas real, und Anders ' (' something real, and 
something else '). Now, ' Etwas ist durch und clurch Etwas, 
und nicht Anders : Anders ist durch und durch Anders, und 
nicht Etwas ' (' The something is through and through 
something, and not the else : else is through and through 
else, and not the something '). 

" He got into quite a dithyrambic mood upon this ; put 
his finger on the organ of individuality, then laid it along- 
side of his nose, then flourished it in the air. It is no 
easy thing to go down to the profound of Hegelism. 
You must take off your Sinnlichkeit (corporeity), which is 
all of many men ; then lay aside your Vorstellungen (no- 
tions), which is, with most men, like plucking ^Esop's jay; 



202 THEODORE PARKER. 

then take off your Begriff (conception); then you are 'far 
too naked to be ashamed.' In short, you are an Ur- 
meiisch (primitive man), a blosse Geist (pure spirit). You 
have then the proper ' alacrity in sinking : ' you go down, 
down, down, and learn that Seyn is equal to Nichtsey?i" 

The most interesting of his studies in Berlin were those 
on the civil and social condition of the state and people. 
These were at once comprehensive and minute. They 
are too long for insertion here, even if lapse of time and 
the social changes of the last generation did not consid- 
erably diminish their value for us. But it is interesting 
to know that Theodore Parker, on the spot, did not put a 
high estimate on the moral state of the Germans. The 
ancient reputation for chastity which Tacitus gave the 
women, was not, according to his observation, sustained 
by facts. The statistics of the consumption of beer 
and ardent spirits proved that intemperance was a pre- 
vailing vice, — not the intemperance that maddens, but 
the intemperance that muddles. He estimated, that, in 
Prussia alone, from forty to forty-five million gallons of 
distilled spirits was consumed yearly ; while the consump- 
tion of beer was something enormous. 

The ride by rail to Wittenberg through a beautiful coun- 
try was a great delight, and Wittenberg itself was pure 
satisfaction. His steps led him directly to Luther's 
grave in the Schlosskirche. Opposite was the grave of 
his friend, the illustrious Melancthon ; and near each were 
paintings of the men, said to be by Cranach. " Luther 
is sadly spread out, and looks hard." The church con- 
tained the pulpit in which Luther sometimes preached, 
and the chancel where stood the tombs of the electors, 
Frederick the Wise and John .the Steadfast. In the 
church, copies were for sale of the ninety-five theses 
which Dr. Martin Luther, on Oct. 31, 15 17, at the Eve of 
the Festival of All Saints, nailed to the door of the 
Schlosskirche. Theodore bought one on the spot, and 



EUROPE. 203 

inserted it at the appropriate place in the journal. 
" What a change from then till now ! Where shall the 
work end ? " At night he walked in front of the church, 
lost in meditation. " The evening star looked down ; the 
soft air fell upon my head : I felt the spirit of the great 
reformer. Three centuries and a quarter, and what a 
change ! Three centuries and a quarter more, and it will 
be said, 'The Protestant Reformation did little in com- 
parison with what has since been done.' Well if this 
work be of God." 

He went to Luther's house ; saw the very room where 
he used to write and think and work ; the stove which he 
devised himself, with its reliefs representing the four 
evangelists and other scriptural characters ; the seat at the 
window where he sat and looked out at the evening sky ; 
the table at which he took his meals, and studied with 
Melancthon and the rest. The books (he had not many) 
were gone. Other rooms contained curious relics, — a 
beer-jug, a glass cup, some embroideries from the hand 
of Catherine Bora, impressions of his seal. Outside the 
walls was the spot where Luther burned the Papal bull. 
It was railed round, and planted with shrubbery. A 
young oak grew in the midst of it : the old oak under 
which the bold deed was done had been hewn down in 
the Seven -Years' War. The monument was visited, of 
course. On a pedestal of polished granite (" I regretted 
the polish "), beneath a Gothic canopy of cast-iron, stood 
the bronze figure of Luther in his preacher's robes, with 
his Bible in his arms. " A grand figure, large, manly, 
with that peasant's expression, but full of nobleness and 
commanding faith." Below was the inscription : — 

" Ist's Gottes Werk, so wird's bestehen 
Ist's Menchen Werk, wird's untergehen." 

To the Rathhaus, the church-steeple, wherever Luther 
had been or might have been, this true disciple of 



204 THEODORE PARKER. 

Luther went, drinking in the great German's soul all the 
time. 
f At Halle he heard Erdmann defend Schleiermacher 
I from the charge of pantheism ; saw Tholuck, and heard 
him lecture ; went to the house of Gesenius, the great 
Hebrew scholar, walked in his garden, plucked a leaf 
from the vine that grew over his window, and paid a visit 
to his grave. 

At Leipsic he went about with Dr. Fliigel to see old 
Hermanns, whom he heard talk about German scholars, 
and lecture ; and dropped a tear on the grave of Charles 
Stearns Wheeler, an excellent American scholar, and a 
beautiful spirit, who went to Leipsic to study and to 
die. At Liitzen he saw the stone where Gustavus Adol- 
phus died, and the Rathhaus where his body lay. At 
Weimar, the city of Wieland, Herder, and Goethe, he had 
the poor satisfaction of viewing the outside of Goethe's 
house. At Erfurt he remembered the cloister where Lu- 
ther, when a monk, paced up and down, and the monas- 
tery where he took his vows. At Gotha he admired the 
fine gardens that beautified the town. At Eisenach he 
went out early to the Wartburg, where Luther lived and 
worked in seclusion. " Saw the very room where he toiled 
in translating the Bible, the table he wrote on, the spot on 
the wall where he threw the inkstand at the Devil. The 
blow must have been a hard one ; for it knocked off the 
plaster, and left the ink on the stone itself. But relic- 
hunters must not be critical. Here is the closet he used, 
studded all over with thick-headed nails ■ the chapel 
where he used to preach ' justification by faith,' and 
' hatred to the pope.' This was his Patmos. It is a fine 
position. You see a great ways from the Wartburg." At 
Frankfort the Jews interest him, and he puts down 
thoughts on the religious condition of Germany. At 
Heidelberg there were learned men to see, — Schlosser, 
Ullman, Umbreit, Havernik, Delitzsch, Paulus, Creuzer 



EUROPE. 205 

(men whom he knew well by their books), Gervinus, 
a young man since so famous in the philosophy of his- 
tory, and from this moment one of Theodore's warm 
friends. After Heidelberg comes Carlsruhe, then Stutt- 
gart. There was Thorwaldsen's statue of Schiller, and, 
in plaster then, Dannecker's beautiful statue of the 
Christ, which J. P. Lesley calls the noblest image of the 
Christ in the world. Parker admires its grandeur and 
purity, but thinks it a little transcendental. At Tubingen, 
Ewald and Baur were the great figures, — the former the 
wonderful historian of the people of Israel, the latter 
the founder of the historical school of New-Testament 
criticism. He had long talks with both, besides hearing 
them lecture. The conversations were not fluent ; for 
Theodore had not the gift of tongues in great profusion ; 
but he contrived to get at the heart of some important 
matters. Baur was a prodigy of learning. " How many 
hours a day do you study? " asked his visitor. " Ach I 7iur 
achtzehn " (" Only eighteen "), replied the old man. The 
American never touched that mark even in his best days ; 
but he did what the German did not, — he spent much time 
in adapting the results of his mental toil to the people, 
and in putting them into plain working shape for social 
uses. The Tubingen giant was aghast at the idea of tak- 
ing the general public into his confidence: it was the 
American's effort and pride to do so. The German lived 
in his library to a great age : the American died in the 
prime of his years. 

At Bale he saw, as was natural, a great deal of De Wette ; ) 
walked with him; dined with him; visited under his guid- 
ance the curiosities of the place. At Berne he enjoyed . 
the society of the Follens, kindred of the good Charles > 
Follen, so affectionately remembered at home. From 
Berne he had his first view of the Alps. "The solid 
mountains seemed clouds, not at all to belong to the 
earth." It was in Berne, too, that his wife earned her 
18 



206 THEODORE PARKER. 

name of " Bear," or " Bearsie," from her delight, not un- 
shared by her husband, in Bruin, the tutelar deity of the 
city, enshrined in his capacious pit. At Lausanne there 
is a cathedral, an old castle, Gibbon's house, and fine 
scenery. At Geneva, memories of Calvin and Servetus, 
of Rousseau and Voltaire, crowd upon him. " Went into 
Voltaire's house : saw his study, sleeping-room, all just 
as he left it. The furniture is of the plainest character. 
From this little room he made kings and popes tremble." 
There were no great exploits at Chamouni- : only the Mont- 
anvert and the Mer de Glace. The stay there was short. 
Martigny, Vevay, Fribourg, Lucerne, came in rapid succes- 
sion. The heroic legends find their place here. At 
Zurich he heard Hitzig lecture on certain points of 
Hebrew syntax : " Quite entertaining, as might be ex- 
pected." He also heard Oken lecture on " Amphibia : " 
" A little man, with an enthusiastic face, forty to fifty years 
old; lectures with great rapidity. Not many pupils for 
this course." At Schaffhausen, Schenkel is the object of 
chief interest. Retracing his steps to Bale, the traveller, 
who seems to be in a hurry, judging from the note-book, 
pushes on to Strasbourg. There the cathedral is the 
prominent feature. He mounts the spire as high as the 
police permit. Mayence, Wiesbaden, Biberich, Ems, Cob- 
lentz, — no notice of any thing but the scenery. In 
Bonn he tried to see Bleek, but found him not at home. 
Presented his letter to Nitsch; but he could read no 
English. They talked, however, not much to the Ameri- 
can's delectation : for the professor was narrow, cold, and 
dry; was surprised to learn that the Unitarians existed 
without a common confession of faith. He spoke of 
Strauss as ganz und gar unchristlich. What he was at 
heart he did not know : his life, he confessed, was pure. 

He admires, as all do, the Cathedral of Cologne, but 
does not believe in finishing it. "The day of building 
grand churches is over. Ours is not a believing age, but 



EUROPE. 207 

an investigating one. Better days will come, when a no- 
bler civilization shall incarnate its thoughts, and, without 
oppressing the poor, rear temples to God most high." 
The pictures of Rubens in the Cathedral of Antwerp 
were disappointing. The descending Christ " is a man, 
not a dead God." Liege and Aix-la-Chapelle awaken 
thoughts about the Catholic Church. 

"What is to become of the Catholic Church I neither 
know nor care much. I have little fear that it will bring 
back the middle ages, while the philosophy of the age, the 
entire spirit of the times, is against it." 

At last he gets back to England. The journal becomes 
more and more sketchy and illegible : much of it is in pen- 
cil, as if the pilgrim became impatient as the time for return- 
ing home drew near. In London he sees Carlyle, Sterling, 
Hennell (whom he finds more negative than positive in his 
religious views), and others of eminence ; tries, without suc- 
cess, to get a publisher in England for the translation of 
De Wette ; hears William J. Fox preach about the Jews, 
and is introduced to him after sermon. " He may be the 
best man in London; but his face is unfortunate." Of 
course, the round of sight-seeing in London is performed 
with energy ; but few impressions of it are recorded in the 
journal. A scant page is given to Cambridge, and that 
contains nothing of significance. In Liverpool he finds 
Martineau, and talks with him about "promiscuous things." 

The days were doubtless fuller than the journal. The 
" promiscuous things " would have appeared weighty to 
anybody else ; for Mr. Martineau was not one to dwell on 
trifles, and Mr. Parker never wasted the rare moments of 
opportunity. At Cambridge he fell in with an English 
scholar whose special pursuit was Aristotle. He could 
boast that he knew Aristotle by heart. His visitor had 
read Aristotle, and was ready enough for discussion on his 
philosophy ; but that topic exhausted, as it was at length, 
Parker introduced the name of Plato. The Englishman 



208 THEODORE PARKER. 

had read Plato, but only once. So the Yankee, who 
perhaps had read him once also, but remembered him, 
descanted copiously on Plato, analyzing the separate Dia- 
logues, and setting forth his views over against those of 
Aristotle. Perhaps he called that " talk about promiscu- 
ous things." 

The journal of Sept. i has this record : " Sunday, after 
a most prosperous and felicitous voyage of twelve days, 
completing the quickest passage ever made, I reached 
home, saw the household, William Whitney, the blessed 
Russells, — all the four little and live plants in bed, — 
and Squire Cowing. Who shall tell my joy at returning? 
who the rapture with which I saw old friends ? 

"I really believe that my enemy hath left me; at least, 
for a season. I can't tell the gratitude I feel for that." 

This enemy was the trouble in his head, which had 
pained and alarmed him from time to time in his travels. 
His health had not been uninterrupted. He was ill in 
Florence, and again in Rome, with symptoms in the side 
which were distressing ; but his apprehensions he kept to 
himself. 

From Florence, in January, he wrote to his friend Dr. 
Francis, " I have now had five months to consider my 
own position. I feel all its melancholiness, the severity of 
the task laid on me : but I feel, too, that I must on, o?i ; 
that the time of rest will never come in my day, and for me • 
but, so long as I live, that I must war against the false 
gods, and their priests as false. I have done little hitherto : 
if health continues, I may, perhaps, do somewhat. I am 
grateful for this opportunity to pause in the middle of my 
course, and see where I am going. I have done wrong 
things, no doubt ; but, the more I think of it, the more 
the general tendency of my path seems to me the true 
one, and the less do I feel an inclination to turn away or 
to stand still." Whether his subsequent travels in Italy, 
Germany, Switzerland, altered his mind, we have now to 



EUROPE. 209 

see. The year in Europe had been a great privilege and a 
great delight. He had seen the past face to face, and 
could fill it in as a strong background to sustain his 
present, and throw into relief his future. It had been a 
year of consolation, which he felt the need of; and of 
experience, which he also felt the need of. The effect 
of it was visible ever after in the rich fund of memories it 
supplied, but more palpably still in the solid groundwork 
of conviction on which he built. 
18* 



CHAPTER X. 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 



They who imagined that Theodore Parker would return 
from Europe a submissive member of the Boston Associa- 
tion, with changed views and altered purposes, deceived 
themselves. He came back with every opinion and every 
determination more than confirmed. He had surveyed his 
position from a distant point ; he had viewed it under all 
lights ; he had examined the institutions of Christendom 
in the places of their power ; he had talked with high 
priests of the Papal Church in Rome, with Protestant 
ministers and theologians in London, Oxford, Berlin, 
Heidelberg, Bale, Zurich ; he had attended lectures from 
the most eminent professors in philosophy ; he had stud- 
ied the working of ecclesiastical and doctrinal systems ; 
he had noted the signs of the times in the speculative, 
social, and moral world ; and the result was a deeper con- 
viction than ever of the justness of his own method, and 
the correctness of his own conclusions. He felt himself, 
more than before even, a reformer, — one who was com- 
missioned along with many others to lead a new religious 
movement, as significant in its time as Protestantism was 
when it appeared. His beliefs were not imported : they 
were the native product of his own mind and experience. 
They were felt before they were formulated. As a boy, 
almost as a child, his sense of the reality, the immanence, 
the infinite perfection, of God, had been profound; his 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 211 

assurance of the soul's personal immortality was beyond 
necessity or reach of argument ; his reverence for the 
moral law, as voiced by his private conscience, was habit- 
ual and deep. He seems never to have doubted on these 
three points \ and they were the cardinal points of his re- 
ligious faith. Subsequent study and reflection hardened 
the feeling into faith, and the faith into formula, but added 
nothing essential to the substance of belief. To give ex- 
pression to these three great verities, to make them seen 
in their beauty, appreciated at their intrinsic value, and 
accepted as vital principles in private and public life, 
was his ruling passion. He proposed as the great object 
of his labor to prove by wide historical survey that the 
leading races of man gave the sanction of their thought 
to his three fundamental positions ; and he made a multi- 
tude of very interesting and close studies in the subject, — 
studies conducted, not as a partisan or a controversialist, 
but as a philosopher, in a spirit of singular candor. He 
read the best literatures ; he gleaned industriously from 
all fields ; nay, he ventured on all tests. The writings of 
atheists and materialists were as familiar to him as the 
writings of believers. He knew Feuerbach as well as 
Cudworth, Vogt and Moleschott as intimately as Fiqhte 
and Sintenis. He was eager to talk with the German 
professors at home and abroad about the New Hegelians 
and their strange views. Some of his fastest friends were 
disbelievers in his theological opinions, able and eloquent 
men too : he was glad to confront their minds with his 
own, and so to test his faith. From every encounter he 
came out with stronger conviction. 

The sermons preached in West Roxbury after his re- 
turn were charged with positive faith, larger, broader, 
more earnest, than had come from him before. The neg- 
ative side of his theology was presented incidentally, that 
the affirmative side might be made more prominent. He 
disturbed what he considered rubbish, that he might re- 



212 THEODORE PARKER. 

veal the temple ; he removed the shanties of the workmen, 
that the people might behold its open doors. He had no 
objection to the belief in miracles, provided their impor- 
tance was not exaggerated, or their function misconceived. 
He was willing that people should believe in prophecies, 
if they would not regard them as demonstrations of truth. 
As has been repeatedly said, a score of notes on the pages 
of the journal show how deeply interested he was in the 
forecasting power of the human mind, and how little dis- 
posed he was to put limits to it. He had no wish, appar- 
ently, to reject any thing that was of active service in the 
cause of religion. What he did reject was thrust aside 
simply because it stood in the way of direct appreciation 
of religious truth. He wanted that, and could not be sat- 
isfied that any should be contented with less. 

But for the unwise passion of Mr. Parker's opponents, 
the former controversy might not have been renewed. 
He might have remained at West Roxbury, a devoted 
parish-minister, a diligent student and writer, comparative- 
ly unknown in the religious world outside of Boston, and 
unfelt as a power beyond the confines of his sect. His 
enemies did for him what his friends never would have 
done ; what he might never have done from his own am- 
bition. In November, 1844, Rev. John Turner Sargent, 
minister of the Suffolk-street Chapel in Boston, — a mis- 
sion-chapel under the charge of the Benevolent Frater- 
nity of Churches, — invited Mr. Parker to exchange pul- 
pits. Had Mr. Sargent been an independent congrega- 
tional minister, responsible to his society alone, his action 
would have made no great stir ; but being, as it were, the 
agent of an association, the Executive Committee of the 
Benevolent Fraternity felt themselves compromised. They 
took alarm ; called a meeting immediately ; deliberated ; 
passed resolutions ; framed a remonstrance, which was 
sent to each of the ministers at large ; and addressed an 
earnest letter to the transgressor of ecclesiastical proprie- 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 213 

ties. The case was interesting. Mr. Sargent was a valued 
minister among the poor. His family contributed largely 
to the erection and embellishment of the chapel where he 
preached. He spent freely of his private property for 
the people under his charge, and was untiring in his la- 
bors in the lower parts of the city. His family had wealth 
and influence. His personal character was above suspi- 
cion : no shadow of reproach clouded his name. A devot- 
ed, upright, self-denying man, he went out into the alleys 
and streets of Boston, gathering together the poor and the 
forsaken, and forming a society which prospered under 
his ministry, and became strongly attached to him. He 
was never openly accused of preaching in his pulpit, or 
believing in his study, the opinions which made Mr. Par- 
ker obnoxious : indeed, he disclaimed intellectual sympa- 
thy with them in the letter he wrote to the remonstrating 
committee. But all this availed nothing. He had ex- 
changed with the arch-heretic ; he justified the act ; he 
would make no promise of future obedience to his supe- 
riors j and the resignation that self-respect dictated was 
accepted. The ministry to the poor lost its best man ; 
an excellent pastor was taken from service he seemed 
made for, and eventually from the calling for which 
he had shown himself eminently fitted, because the 
Unitarian body had not courage to stand by its own 
principle. 

The case made a great sensation. Letters and replies, 
arguments and counter-arguments, criminations and re- 
criminations, came out in newspaper and pamphlet. The 
" orthodox " struck in, jubilant and sarcastical. The sec- 
ular journals took the matter up once more, and thrashed 
the vacant straw with lively flail. 

The excitement was at its height when Mr. Parker, still 
a member of the Ministerial Association, took his turn 
in preaching the Thursday Lecture at the First Church 
in Chauncy Place, on Dec. 26. The Thursday Lecture 



214 THEODORE PARKER. 

was an ancient institution, inaugurated in the early days 
by one of the fathers of the First Church, who preached 
it at first himself, and afterwards invited his brother- 
ministers in Boston and the vicinity to participate with 
him. For many years it was a famous institution, and 
went by the name of "the great and Thursday Lecture." 
But, thirty years ago, it had fallen sadly from its primeval 
glory. The galleries were empty, the lower pews nearly 
so. A score or two of venerable women glided silently in 
at the hour of eleven, and took their seats, well provided 
with bottles of sal-volatile against the probable effect 
of the discourse. Here and there a country clergyman, 
drawn by legendary associations or personal regard for 
the victim in the desk, showed a resigned face in the 
shadow. The choir was extemporized for the occasion, 
and made music of an extraordinary quality ; the handiest 
amateur being drafted to play the organ, a son of the 
minister of the First Church commonly doing arduous 
and unremunerated duty at the bellows. The sacrifice 
lasted a painful hour. There was no enthusiasm among 
the brethren for the honor of court preacher. Substitutes 
were eagerly sought, and volunteers were rare. It was 
long since a sinner had been awakened on Thursday fore- 
noon : the sinners had ceased to expect awakening, and 
staid away. None came but saints, and these came not 
with jubilant feet. 

It was another scene when Theodore Parker spoke. 
The pews, above and below, were crowded early. The 
tardy comers had to stand in any spot they could find ; 
the pulpit stairs were occupied ; the volunteer singers 
had not even their " loft " to themselves. Strangers who 
had scarcely heard of the Thursday Lecture were there : 
the old habitues did not know the place. The venerable 
old ladies were in the minority. Scent-bottles were un- 
called for. The preacher's theme was, "The Relation 
of Jesus to his Age and the Ages." It was not a great 



THE CONFLICT RENE WED. 2 1 5 

sermon j it was loose, rhetorical, and unsatisfactory in 
almost all respects : but it was glowing, earnest, sweep- 
ing, with immense rush, the negative aspects of it com- 
pletely hidden behind the gorgeous ascriptions of praise 
to Jesus. The audience listened with various emotions. 
Simple and straightforward though the sermon was, it 
stirred the most opposite feelings, and provoked the most 
discordant comment. It was printed ; but even then the 
disputation over it did not cease. Theodore Parker had 
made, perhaps, the most kindling affirmative statement 
about Jesus that had ever been made from that pulpit \ and 
yet his making it there was construed as a new offence, 
that must not on any account be repeated. The discus- 
sions were warm. To expel Mr. Parker from the Asso- 
ciation was a step that could not be ventured ; and he 
declined to withdraw. At length, after many revolvings 
and resolvings, a device was hit on. The minister of the. 
First Church still held the matter in his hands. Origi- 
nally, it was his lecture : at his invitation only, others 
shared with him the privilege of delivering it. He had 
now but to fall back on first principles, to return to the 
original arrangement, cancel the invitations which had 
been so long out that they were held to be rights, issue 
new ones to the proper men, — omitting the wrong man 
from the list, — and the knot was cut. The minister of 
the First Church, acting on the hint, took the matter into 
his own hands, summoned all but Mr. Parker to his side, 
and the " stream of tendency " was so far checked. The 
device was ingenious, but not handsome. The ungodly 
called it a trick. The divine powers did not think it 
noble ; for, not long after, " the great and Thursday Lec- 
ture " was discontinued. 

Precisely one month after the lecture, Rev. James Free- 
man Clarke, pastor of the Church of the Disciples in Bos- 
ton, against the wishes of his chief parishioners, — two of 
whom, Benjamin H. Greene and John A. Andrew, called 



216 THEODORE PARKER. 

on Mr. Parker to represent the feeling, having in vain re- 
monstrated with Mr. Clarke, — after giving due notice to 
his people the Sunday before, exchanged pulpits with Mr. 
Parker, disavowing all sympathy with his heresies, but 
performing what he considered a duty of Christian fel- 
lowship. The hall, Masonic Temple, was crowded, not- 
withstanding that some of the regular congregation staid 
piously away. Mr. Parker brought the most innocent 
sermon he had, a very innocent sermon indeed, on " The 
Excellence of Goodness." It ought to have satisfied 
the most timid people that he was not dangerous ; but it 
did not. There was ' a secession from the Church of 
the Disciples in the direction of Rev. R. C. Waterston, 
the minister of Pitts-street Chapel, as Mr. Sargent had 
been of Suffolk-street. Mr. Waterston, in a long letter 
disapproving of Mr. Sargent's course, had thrown himself 
into the current of the popular sentiment, which took him 
from his humble mission-chapel, and bore him to a hand- 
some stone church in Bedford Street. But the under-cur- 
rent was with Mr. Parker, after all. The tide soon began 
to ebb : the new society, having no special ground of 
being, diminished and disappeared. 

The reformer was now practically excluded from the 
churches of Boston : the pulpits, one and all, were closed 
against him with an emphasis like that of the skimming 
of doors. At this juncture a company of gentlemen met 
on Jan. 22, 1845, and passed a single resolution, — 

" That the Rev. Theodore Parker shall have a chance to be 
heard in Boston." 

A commodious hall was obtained, — the Melodeon. It 
occupied the ground now covered by the Boston Theatre ; 
and on Feb. 16 — a cold, wintry day, the air thick with bit- 
ter rain, the streets full of snow — the ministry in Boston 
was begun, with much misgiving on his part, with san- 
guine expectation on the part of his friends, who saw the 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 217 

gold drop into the crucible, and remembered the text 
which prophesied the fine result of that process. But the 
preacher had courage, if he had distrusts. In his journal 
he writes, at date Jan. 16, 1845, "I P ra Y God for the per- 
manency of my ability. I feel that I have a great work 
to do : I think I shall not fail in it. I have no fears for 
myself ; but it is a little painful to see the condition of 
others. I would I had the presence of two men : then 
would I be two ministers, — one here, and one in Boston." 
In a letter to his young friend, Joseph Allen, he says, 
" You say your professional function is different from 
mine. That may be true ; but mine has been, hitherto, to 
endeavor to lay the foundation of my religious teachings 
so deep that nothing could move or shake it. I never 
scruple, nor ever will, to remove out of my way any rub- 
bish that I come upon, and to declare the rubbish is one 
thing, and the Rock of Ages a little different, nay, quite 
another thing. I never regarded my function as negative, 
except in a small degree. I would pull up the weeds, and 
give them to the pigs ; then plant the corn for men and 
pigs too." 

A conference with a committee of the Boston Associa- 
tion of Ministers was fruitless of any good result. It was 
kindly in temper, but revealed no common ground of pro- 
fessional action, and closed even less satisfactorily than 
the famous interview between Paul and the Judaizing 
apostles which the Romish Church dignifies with the name 
of the First Council. His feeling about the Unitarians is 
pungently expressed in the following short extract from a 
letter to S. J. May : " The Unitarians are getting shock- 
ingly bigoted and little. Their late meetings were windy. 
They went to ventilate their narrowness. Yet how con- 
temptible must be a sect who only deny the divinity of 
Christ, — affirming a denial, — their life the development 
of a negation ! Anniversary-week had painfully little of 
the Channing; much of the Norton, bating his scholar- 
19 



218 THEODORE PARKER. 

ship ; more of the , — specious, superficial, and 

worldly. The Universalists are more humane than we : 
they declare the Fatherhood of God, and do not stick at 
the consequences, — everlasting happiness for all men. I 
think they are the most humane sect in the land. They 
had an address on temperance, one on slavery, one on 
war, delivered before their ministers on anniversary-week. 
Think of that, we whose ' mission it is to be silent about 
slavery,' and I suppose about war, intemperance, and all 
other sins that everybody has a mind to ! Do tell the 
youngsters to be men, — not merely dawdling ministers, 

with no more than a pack of cards. They never will 

ask me to preach to them, and I hope they won't ; but 
I rejoice in your opportunity to teach them how to love 
the unlovely, and to overcome evil with good." 

The advent to Boston was signalized by the following 
letter, which effectually terminated a long discussion, and 
with it Mr. Parker's connection with the Unitarians. If 
he expected a formal reply to it, he was disappointed. But 
probably he intended it only as a published manifesto on 
his own part, which might or might not call forth a coun- 
ter-manifesto from the opposite party, but which, whether 
it did or not, would remain a standing challenge to the 
churches. Such it was, indeed, — a challenge that has 
never been fairly accepted. 



A LETTER TO THE BOSTON ASSOCIATION OF CONGREGA- 
TIONAL MINISTERS TOUCHING CERTAIN MATTERS OF 
THEIR THEOLOGY. 

Gentlemen, — The peculiar circumstances of the last few- 
years have placed both you and me in new relations to the 
public and to one another. Your recent actions constrain me 
to write you this public letter, that all may the more fully un- 
derstand the matter at issue between us, and the course you 
design to pursue. You are a portion of the Unitarian body, 
and your opinions and conduct will no doubt have some influ- 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 219 

ence upon that body. You have, I am told, at great length, 
and in several consecutive meetings, discussed the subject of 
my connection with your reverend body. You have debated 
the matter, whether you should expel me for heresy ; and by a 
circuitous movement, recently made, have actually excluded me 
from preaching the Thursday Lecture. I do not call in ques- 
tion your motives ; for it is not my office to judge you : neither 
do I now complain of your conduct, public or private, towards 
me during the last three years. That has been various. Some 
members of your Association have uniformly treated me with 
the courtesy common amongst gentlemen ; some also with the 
civilities that are usual amongst ministers of the same denonr- 
nation. Towards some of your number I entertain an affec- 
tionate gratitude for the good words I have heard from their 
lips in my youth. I feel a great regard for some of you, on ac- 
count of their noble and Christian characters, — virtuous, self- 
denying, pious, and without bigotry. I cherish no unkind feel- 
ing towards the rest of you : towards none of you do I feel 
ill-will on account of what has passed. I have treated my op- 
ponents with a forbearance, which, I think, has not always been 
sufficiently appreciated by such as have had the chief benefit 
of that forbearance. However, I hope never to be driven, 
either by abuse from an opponent or by the treachery of a pre- 
tended friend, to depart from the course of forbearance which 
I have hitherto and uniformly pursued. But since you have 
practically taken so decided a stand, and have so frequently 
discussed me and my affairs among yourselves, and have at 
last made your movement, I think it important that the public 
should have a distinct knowledge of your theological position. 
I am searching for truth, however humbly ; and I suppose that 
you are as desirous of imparting to others as of receiving from 
Heaven. Therefore I shall proceed to ask ycu certain ques- 
tions a good deal talked of at the present day, to which I ven- 
ture to ask a distinct and categorical reply. But, by way of 
preliminary, I will first refresh your memory with a few facts. 

Until recently, the Unitarians have been supposed to form 
the advance guard, so to say, of the Church militant ; at least, 
they have actually been the movement-party in theology. It may 
hurt the feelings of some men now to confess it ; but I think it 
is true. As such, the Unitarians have done a great work. As 



220 THEODORE PARKER. 

I understand the matter, this work was in part intellectual; for 
they really advanced theological science, both negati\ r ely by the 
exposure of errors, and positively by the establishment of 
truths : but in greater part moral j for they declared, either 
directly or by implication, the right of each man to investigate for 
himself in matters pertaining to religion ; and his right also to 
the Christian name if he claimed it, and by his character seemed 
to deserve it. They called themselves "liberal" Christians, and 
seemed to consider that he was the best Christian who was 
most like Christ in character and life ; thus making religion the 
essential of Christianity, and leaving each man to determine his 
own theology. They began their history by a denial of the 
Trinity, — a doctrine very dear to the Christian Church, of very 
ancient standing therein, common alike to Catholics and Prot- 
estants ; a doctrine for centuries regarded as essential to the 
Christian scheme ; the fundamental dogma of Christianity. For 
this denial they encountered the usual fate of the movement- 
party : they were denied Christian fellowship, and got a bad 
name, which they keep even now. I am told that they are still 
called " infidels " by the Trinitarian leaders ; and that, you know, 
gentlemen, is a term of great reproach in the theological world. 
It has been asserted, I think, in some Orthodox journal, that 
the lamented Dr. Channing — whose name is now, perhaps, 
praised by your Association oftener than his example is fol- 
lowed — undoubtedly went to hell for his sin in denying that 
Jesus of Nazareth was the Infinite God. Gentlemen, these 
things happened not a great many years ago. I do not wonder 
at the treatment the Unitarians have received, and still receive, 
where they are not numerous and powerful : for the Trinitari- 
ans maintain that no one can be saved without a belief in cer- 
tain doctrines of their theology ; which very doctrines the 
Unitarians* stoutly denied, and in public too. The Orthodox 
were consistent in what the Unitarians then regarded as perse- 
cution, and, I doubt not, would have used the old arguments, — 
fagots and the axe, — had not the laws of the 'land rendered it 
quite impossible to resort to this ultimate standard of theologi- 
cal appeal, which had been a favorite with many of the clergy 
for more than fourteen centuries. The Unitarians complained 
of that treatment as not altogether Christian. 

But now, gentlemen, it seems to me that some of you are 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 221 

pursuing the same course you once complained of ; and, if I 
rightly apprehend the theology of your learned body, — of which, 
however, I am not quite sure, — without the same consistency, 
having no warrant therefor in your theological system. I say 
nothing of your motives in all this ; nothing of the spirit in 
which some of you have acted. That matter is beyond my 
reach : to your own master you stand or fall. In 1841 I 
preached a sermon at South Boston at an ordination. That 
was soon attacked by the Rev. Mr. Fairchild, and numerous 
other clergymen of several denominations equally zealous for 
the Christian faith. Since that time, most of you have refused 
me the ministerial courtesies commonly shown to the ministers 
of the same denomination. And yet, gentlemen, I think these 
courtesies are not, in all denominations, withheld when one of 
the parties has a moral reputation that is at least ambiguous. 
Only five of your number, I believe, have since exchanged with 
me ; though comparatively but few members of other Unitarian 
associations have departed from their former course. I do not 
complain of this : I simply state the fact. 

Now, gentlemen, there is one matter on which you will 
allow me to pause a moment. The Fraternity of Churches is, I 
suppose virtually, though not formally, under the direction of 
certain members of your Association. Now, that Fraternity 
has virtually expelled from his office a minister engaged in a 
noble and Christian work, and performing that work with rare 
ability and success. You have thus expelled him from his 
place simply because he extended ministerial fellowship to me 
in common with ministers of several other denominations. The 
case of Mr. Sargent is peculiar, and I must dwell a moment on 
a few particulars respecting it. If I rightly remember, his 
family contributed largely to the erection and embellishment of 
the chapel out of which he is expelled. He has himself spent 
freely his own property for the poor under his charge, and has 
been untiring in his labors. No shadow of reproach attaches to 
his name. He is above suspicion of immorality; but, on the 
contrary, is distinguished beyond his fellows by the excellence 
cf his character and the nobleness of his life. A righteous and 
a self-denying man, he went out into the lanes and highways of 
Boston gathering together the poor and the forsaken, and 
formed a society which prospered under his ministry, and be- 
19* 



222 THEODORE PARKER. 

came strongly attached to him. And yet, gentlemen, some of 
you have seen fit, knowing all these circumstances, by demand- 
ing of him a pledge that he would never exchange with me, to 
drive away from the field of his labors and the arms of his 
parish this noble man, solely because he extended the usual 
ministerial fellowship to me ; and yet I still continue a member 
of your Association ! I think he has never been accused, 
perhaps not suspected, of preaching in his pulpit, or even 
believing in his study, the peculiar doctrines of my own the- 
ology, which are so obnoxious to some of you, and apparently 
reckoned worse than a grave moral offence. It may be said 
that Mr. Sargent was minister over a vassal church, and the Fra- 
ternity were his feudal superiors j and this seems to be true. 
You will say, furthermore, that the Boston Association, as a 
whole, is not responsible for the acts of the Fraternity ; and this 
is doubtless the case : but, as I think some of its members are 
accountable, to them let the above remarks apply. I pass to 
another matter. 

The Unitarians have no recognized and public creed. It 
used to be their glory. At the Theological School in Cambridge 
I subscribed to no symbolical books ; at my ordination I 
assented to no form of doctrines, neither church nor council 
requesting it. When I became a member of your learned body, 
no one asked me of my opinions, whether orthodox or hetero- 
dox : no one even demanded a promise that I should never 
change an opinion or discover a new truth ! I know well, gen- 
tlemen, that I differ, and that very widely, from the systems of 
theology which are taught, and from the philosophy which 
underlies these systems. I have no wish to disguise my theol- 
ogy, or to shelter it beneath the authority of your Association : 
let it stand or fall by itself. But still I do not know that I 
have transgressed the limits of Unitarianism ; for I do not 
know what those limits are. It is a great glory to a liberal 
association to have no Symbolical Books, but a great inconveni- 
ence that a sect becoming exclusive should not declare its creed. 
I cannot utter the shibboleth of a party till I first hear it pro- 
nounced in the orthodox way. I shall presently proceed to beg 
you to point out the limits of scientific freedom, and tell the 
maxi77ium of theological belief which distinguishes you from 
the "orthodox" on the one side, and the minimum thereof 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 223 

which distinguishes you from the " infidels " on the other 
side. 

Gentlemen, you refuse me fellowship ; you discuss the ques- 
tion, whether you shall expel me from your Association ; and you 
actually, though indirectly, prohibit me, as I understand it, from 
preaching " the great and Thursday Lecture." Gentlemen, I wish 
to know distinctly the ground you take in this matter. It is not 
altogether plain why you put yourselves in 3'our peculiar atti- 
tude towards me. Mr. Sargent is expelled for granting me 
ministerial fellowship. He was an accessory after the fact in 
my alleged heresies, and being but a vassal of the Fraternity, 
and therefore within their power, is punished, while the principal 
of the mischief is allowed to go unscathed ; and other clergymen 
who exchange with me, but have no feudal lords, retain their 
places as before. Here the issue is obvious ; and Mr. Sargent is 
expelled from his pulpit for positive misprision of heresy, if I 
may make use of such a term. Of course the same doctrine 
excludes him from his pulpit and the Association. But I am 
told that Mr. Pierpont was quite as effectually excluded from 
the actual fellowship of your Association as even myself ; for, 
while three of the city members of your Association have contin- 
ued to extend ministerial fellowship to me, — Mr. Pierpont, Mr. 
Sargent, and Mr. Clarke, — only three, — Mr. Gannett, Mr. Sar- 
gent, and Mr. Clarke, — if I am rightly informed, have extended 
that fellowship to him since the time of the famed Hollis-street 
Council ! Yet I think he is guilty of no heresy, — theological 
and speculative heresy I mean ; for, in practical affairs, it is well 
known that his course is the opposite of that pursued by most 
of his brethren in the city. 

Still more : at a conference I had with the Association a 
little more than two years ago, the chairman of the Association 
— the Rev. Dr. Parkman — declared that my main offence 
was not my theological heresies : they would have been for- 
given and forgot, had it not been for an article I published on the 
Hollis-street Council (printed in "The Dial" for October, 1842), 
in which, as he alleged, I "poured scorn and contempt upon 
the brethren." Yet others charge me with heresies, and on 
account thereof, I am told, actually deny my right to Christian 
fellowship from them, and even my title, to the Christian name. 

In this intricate confusion, gentlemen, you will probably 



224 THEODORE PARKER. 

see the necessity of saying a word to put all things in a fair 
light, that I may know on what point you and I are really at 
issue. Notwithstanding the remarks of the Rev. Dr. Parkman, 
I am still inclined to the belief that the charge of heresy is the 
main charge ; and as you have had the field of controversy en- 
tirely to yourselves these several years, and as yet have not, as a 
body, made a public and authorized statement of your theologi- 
cal belief, I must beg you to inform me what is orthodoxy accord- 
ing to the Boston Association. The orthodoxy of the Catholic 
Church I know very well ; I am not wholly ignorant of what is 
called orthodox by the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches : but the 
orthodoxy of the Boston Association of Congregational Min- 
isters is not a thing so easy to come at. As I try to compre- 
hend it, I feel I am looking at something dim and undefined. 
It changes color, and it changes shape : now it seems a moun- 
tain ; then it appears like a cloud. You will excuse me, gentle- 
men ; but, though I have been more than seven years a member 
of your reverend body, I do not altogether comprehend your 
theology, nor know what is orthodox. You will do a great ser- 
vice if you will publish your Symbolical Books, and let the 
world know what is the true doctrine according to the Boston 
Association of Congregational Ministers. I have defined my 
own position as well as I could, and will presently beg you to 
reply, distinctly, categorically, and unequivocally, to the follow- 
ing questions. Gentlemen, you are theologians ; men of leisure 
and learning ; mighty in the Scriptures. Some of you have 
grown gray in teaching the world ; most of you, I think, make 
no scruple of passing judgment, public and private, on my opin- 
ions and myself. It is therefore to be supposed that you have 
examined things at large, and been curious in particulars ; have 
searched into the mysteries of things, deciding what is true, 
what false, what Christian, and what not ; and so have deter- 
mined on a standard of doctrines which is to you well known, 
accessible, and acknowledged by all. Some of you can sling 
stones at a hair's -breadth in the arena of theology. You are 
many, and I am standing alone. Of course I shall take it for 
granted that you have, each and all, thoroughly, carefully, and 
profoundly examined the matters at issue between us ; that you 
have made up your minds thereon, and are all entirely agreed in 
your conclusions, and that on all points : for surely it were not 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. • 225 

charitable to suppose, without good and sufficient proof, that a 
body of- Christian ministers — conscientious men, learned, and 
aware of the difficulties of the case — would censure and virtu- 
ally condemn one of their number for heresy, unless they had 
made personal investigation of the whole matter, had themselves 
agreed on their standard of orthodoxy, and were quite ready to 
place that standard before the eyes of the whole people. I beg 
that this standard of Unitarian orthodoxy, as it is agreed upon 
and established by the authority of the Boston Association, may 
be set before my eyes and those of the public at the same time ; 
and therefore, gentlemen, I propose to you the following 

QUESTIONS. 

Class I. — Scholastic questions relating to the definition of 
terms frequently used in theology : — 

1. What do you mean by the word " salvation " ? 

2. What do you mean by a " miracle " ? 

3. What do you mean by " inspiration " ? 

4. What do you mean by " revelation " ? 

Class II. — Dogmatic questions relating to certain doctrines 
of theology • — 

5. In questions of theology, to what shall a man appeal ? and 
what is the criterion whereby he is to test theological, moral, 
and religious doctrines ? Are there limits to theological inquiry ? 
and if so, what are those limits ? Is truth to be accepted be- 
cause it is true, and right to be followed because it is right, 
or for some other reason ? 

6. What are the conditions of salvation, both theoretical and 
practical ? and l^ow are they known ? 

7. What do you consider the essential doctrines of Christian- 
ity ? What moral and religious truth is taught by Christianity 
that was wholly unknown to the human race before the time of 
Christ ? and is there any doctrine of Christianity that is not a 
part also of natural religion ? 

8. Do you believe all the books in the Bible came from the 
persons to whom they are, in our common version thereof, 
ascribed ? or what are genuine and canonical Scriptures ? 

9. Do you believe that all or any of the authors of the Old 
Testament were miraculously inspired, so that all or any of their 
language can properly be called the Word of God, and their 



226 ' THEODORE PARKER. 

writings constitute a miraculous revelation ? or are those writ- 
ings to be judged of, as other writings, by their own merits, and 
so made to pass for what they are worth ? In short, what is the 
authority of the Old Testament ? and what relation does it bear 
to man, — that of master, or servant ? 

10. Do you believe the law contained in the Pentateuch, in 
all parts and particulars, is miraculously inspired or revealed to 
man ? or is it, like the laws of Massachusetts, a human work in 
whole or in part ? 

11. Do you believe the miracles related in the Old Testa- 
ment ? — for example, that God appeared in a human form, spoke 
in human speech, walked in the garden of Eden, ate and drank ; 
that he commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and made the 
verbal declarations so often attributed to him in the Old and 
New Testament ; that Moses spoke with him " as a man speak- 
eth with his friend ; " that the miracles alleged to have been 
wrought for the sake of the Hebrews in Egypt, the Red Sea, 
Arabia, and Palestine, and recorded in the Bible, were actual 
facts ; that the births of Isaac, Samson, and Samuel, were mirac- 
ulous ; that Balaam's ass spoke the Hebrew words put into his 
mouth ; that God did miraculously give to Moses, and others 
mentioned in the Old Testament, the commands there ascribed 
to him ; that the sun stood still as related in the Book of Joshua ; 
that Jonah was swallowed by a large fish, and, while within the 
fish, composed the ode ascribed to him ? And do you believe all 
the miracles related in the Books of Daniel, Job, and elsewhere 
in the Old Testament ? 

12. Do you believe that any prophet of the Old Testament, 
solely through a miraculous revelation made to Ijim by God, did 
distinctly and unequivocally foretell any distant and future event 
which has since come to pass ? and, in special, that any prophet 
of the Old Testament did thereby, and in manner aforesaid, dis- 
tinctly and equivocally foretell the birth, life, sufferings, death, 
and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, so that Jesus was, in the 
proper and exclusive sense of the word, the Messiah predicted 
by the prophets, and expected by the Jews ? 

13. What do you think is the meaning of the phrase, "Thus 
saith the Lord," with its kindred expressions, in the Old Testa- 
ment ? 

14. Do you believe that all or any of the authors of the New 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 227 

Testament were miraculously inspired, so that all or any of their 
language can properly be called the Word of God, and that their 
writings constitute a miraculous revelation ? or are those writings 
to be judged of, as other writings, by their own merits, and so 
made to pass for what they are worth ? In short, what is the 
authority of the New Testament ? and what relation does it bear 
to man, — that of master, or servant ? 

15. Do you believe the Christian apostles were miraculously 
inspired to teach, write, or act, with such a mode, kind, or degree 
of inspiration as is not granted by God, in all time, to other men 
equally wise, moral, and pious ? Do you think the apostles were 
so informed by miraculous inspiration as never to need the 
exercise of the common faculties of man, and never to fall into 
anv errors of fact and doctrine ? or are we to suppose that the 
apostles were mistaken in their announcement of the speedy 
destruction of the world, of the resurrection of the body, &c. 

16. What do you think is the nature of Jesus of Nazareth ? 
Was he God, man, or a being neither God nor man f And how 
does he effect the salvation of mankind ? In what sense is he 
the Saviour, Mediator, and Redeemer ? 

17. Do you believe that Jesus of Nazareth was miraculously 
born, as it is related in two of the Gospels, with but one human 
parent ; that he was tempted by the Devil, and transfigured, talking 
actually with Moses and Elias ; that he actually transformed the 
substance of water into the substance of wine ; fed five thou- 
sand men with five loaves and two fishes ; that he walked on the 
waters ; miraculously stilled a tempest ; sent demons out of men 
into a herd of swine ; and that he restored to life persons wholly 
and entirely dead ? 

18. Do you believe that Jesus had a miraculous and infallible 
inspiration different in kind or mode from that granted to other 
wise, good, and pious men, informing him to such a degree 
that he never made a mistake in matters pertaining to religion, 
to theology, to philosophy, or to any other department of human 
concern ; and that therefore he teaches with an authority supe- 
rior to reason, conscience, and the religious sentiment in the 
individual man ? 

19. Do you believe that it is impossible for God to create a 
being with the same moral and religious excellence that Jesus 
had, but also with more and greater intellectual and other facul- 



228 THEODORE PARKER. 

ties, and send him into the world as a man ? or has Jesus 
exhausted either or both the capacity of man, or the capability 
of God? 

20. Do you believe, that, from a state of entire and perfect 
death, Jesus returned to a state of entire and perfect physical 
life ; that he did all the works and uttered all the words attrib- 
uted to him in the concluding parts of the Gospels after his 
resurrection ; and was subsequently taken up into heaven bodily 
and visibly, as mentioned in the book of Acts ? 

21. Do you believe, that, at the death of Jesus, the earth 
quaked, the rocks were rent ; that darkness prevailed over the 
land for three hours ; that the graves were opened, and many 
bodies of saints that slept arose and appeared to many ? 

22. Do you believe that Jesus, or any of the writers of the 
New Testament, believed in and taught the existence of a per- 
sonal Devil, of angels good or bad, of demons who possessed 
the bodies of men ? and do you yourselves believe the existence 
of a personal Devil, of such angels and demons ? In special, do 
you believe that the angel Gabriel appeared to Zacharias and to 
the Virgin Mary, and uttered exactly those words ascribed to 
him in the third Gospel ? 

23. Do you believe that the writers of the four Gospels and 
the book of Acts never mingled mythical, poetical, or legendary 
matter in their compositions ; that they never made a mistake in 
a matter of fact ; and that they have, in all cases, reported the 
words and actions of Jesus with entire and perfect accuracy ? 

24. Do you believe the miracles related in the book of Acts ? 
— for example, the miraculous inspiration of the apostles at 
Pentecost ; the cures effected by Peter, his vision, his miracu- 
lous deliverance from prison "by the angel of the Lord ; " the 
miraculous death of Ananias and Sapphira ; the miraculous con- 
version of Paul ; that diseased persons were cured by handker- 
chiefs and aprons brought to them from Paul ; and that he and 
Stephen actually, and with the body's eye, saw Jesus Christ, an 
actual object exterior to themselves ? 

25. Do you believe that Peter, in the Acts, correctly explains 
certain passages of the Old Testament as referring to Jesus of 
Nazareth, his sufferings, death, and resurrection ; that Jesus 
himself, — if the Gospels truly represent his words, — in all cases, 
applies the language of the Old Testament to himself, in its 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 229 

proper and legitimate meaning ? Was he never mistaken in this 
matter ? or have the passages of the Old Testament many- 
meanings ? 

26. Do you think that a belief in the miraculous inspiration 
of all or any of the writers of the Old Testament or New Testa- 
ment : that a belief in all or any of the miracles therein men- 
tioned ; that a belief in the miraculous birth, life, resurrection, 
and ascension of Jesus ; that a belief in his miraculous, univer- 
sal, and infallible inspiration, — is essential to a perfect Christian 
character, to salvation and acceptance with God, or even to par- 
ticipation in the Christian name ? and if so, what doctrine of 
morality or religion really and necessarily rests, in whole or in 
part, on such a belief ? 

27. Do you believe that the two ordinances — Baptism and 
the Lord's Supper — are, in themselves, essential, necessary, and 
of primary importance as ends, valuable for their own sakes ? or 
that they are helps and means for the formation of the Christian 
character, and therefore valuable only so far as they help to form 
that character ? 

28. Do you think it wrong or unchristian in another to aban- 
don and expose what he deems a popular error, or to embrace and 
proclaim an unpopular truth ? Do you count yourselves, theoret- 
ically, to have attained all religious and theological truth, and to 
have retained no error in your own creed, so that it is wholly 
unnecessary for you, on the one hand, to re-examine your own 
opinions, or, on the other, to search farther for light and truth ? 
or do you think yourselves competent, without such search or 
such examination, to pronounce a man an infidel, and no Chris- 
tian, solely because he believes many things in theology which 
you reject, and rejects some things which you believe ? 

Gentlemen, you have yourselves constrained me to write this 
letter. I write to you in this open way ; for I wish that the pub- 
lic may understand your opinions as well as my own. I beg you 
will give your serious attention to the above questions, and 
return me a public answer, not circuitously, but in a straightfor- 
ward, manly way, and at your earliest convenience. I have at 
various times, as distinctly as possible, set forth my own views ; 
and as you have publicly placed yourselves in a hostile atti- 
tude to me, as some of you have done all in their power. to dis- 
own me, and as they have done this partly on account of my 



230 THEODORE PARKER. 

alleged heresies, it is but due to yourselves to open' the gospel 
according to the Boston Association, give the public an opportu- 
nity to take the length and breadth of your standard of Unita- 
rian orthodoxy, and tell us all what you really think on the 
points above mentioned. Then you and I shall know in what 
we differ : there will be a clear field before us ; and, if we are 
doomed to contend, we shall not fight in the dark. I have 
invited your learned attention to matters on which it is supposed 
that you have inquired and made up your mind, and that you are 
entirely agreed among yourselves, and yet that you differ most 
widely from me. I have not, however, touched the great philo- 
sophical questions which lie at the bottom of all theology, 
because I do not understand that you have yourselves raised 
these questions, or consciously and distinctly joined issue upon 
them with me. Gentlemen, you are men of leisure, and I am 
busied with numerous cares : you are safe in your multitude 
of council, while I have comparatively none to advise with. But 
notwithstanding these advantages, so eminently on your side, I 
have not feared to descend into the arena, and, looking only for 
the truth, to write you this letter. I shall pause, impatient for 
your reply ;. and with hearty wishes for your continued prosper- 
ity, your increased usefulness, and growth alike in all Christian 
virtues and every manly grace, I remain, gentlemen, 
Your obedient servant, 

Theodore Parker. 

West Roxbury, March 20, 1845. 

Mr. Parker's arrangement with his Boston friends con- 
templated a Sunday-morning service at the Melodeon for 
a year ; the pulpit at West Roxbury being temporarily 
filled by substitutes, he still having his residence there, 
and maintaining pastoral relations with the people. The 
Boston preaching was regarded as an experiment ; but it 
was so prosperous, that, before the year had elapsed, a 
permanent settlement was decided on and effected. On 
the 13th of December, 1845, an invitation from the Bos- 
ton Society to become their minister was accepted. On 
the 3d of January, 1846, the position at West Roxbury 
was resigned in a tenderly-worded letter, and the new re- 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 231 

lation taken up. Signal success had attended the preach- 
ing at the Melodeon. The hall was filled every Sunday 
morning with earnest listeners, humble people in the main, 
but intelligent, eager, determined j who came for spiritual 
food, and were sure to get it. They flocked together, indi- 
vidual men and women, from the four corners of the eccle- 
siastical world ; some from the " outer darkness " of the 
world non-ecclesiastical. The circles of fashion were not 
largely represented; but the thoughtful, sensitive, and 
humane were there in numbers. The seekers, doubters, 
reformers, were conspicuously present. It was such an 
audience as the preacher liked. It made him feel that 
his office was no sinecure, his work no child's play, but a 
battle ; but it made him feel, too, that he was surrounded 
by fellow-laborers and fellow-soldiers. The attraction 
and the inspiration were mutual. The people looked up 
to the preacher ; the preacher looked into the faces of the 
people ; and both were cheered. 

The installation took place on Jan. 4, 1846, according 
to the strictest congregational usage, the society them- 
selves taking the pastor of their choice. The ceremony 
was of the simplest. There was no charge, the minister's 
good conscience being deemed sufficient pledge of his 
fidelity ; no address to the people, they having already 
listened to the voice of their own heart, and being dis- 
posed to follow it ; no right hand of fellowship, a hundred 
hands with souls in them being outstretched to give the 
pastor welcome. The minister preached his own sermon, 
and prayed his own prayer : none could do it better. 
The chairman of the committee made a short statement 
of the measures taken in founding the society, and calling 
Mr. Parker : then the " exercises " went on. The preacher 
announced as the subject of his sermon, " The Idea of a 
Christian Church." Let us catch at least the spirit of it ; 
for it struck the key-note of his subsequent ministry. He 
took no text, but began as if he meant business, and had 
no more than time enough for it. 



232 THEODORE PARKER. 

The Church was defined as " a body of men and women 
united together in a common desire of religious excellence, 
and with a common regard for Jesus of Nazareth, regard- 
ing him as the noblest example of morality and religion." 
" Its essential of substance is the union for the purpose 
of cultivating love to God and man ; and the essential of 
form is the common regard for Jesus, considered as the 
highest representation of God that we know." "It is not 
the form, either of ritual or of doctrine, but the spirit, 
which constitutes a Christian church. Christianity, to be 
perfect and entire, demands a complete manliness, — the 
bravest development of the whole man, mind, heart, and 
soul. It aims not to destroy the sacred peculiarities of 
individual character : it cherishes and develops them in 
their perfection." "A Christian church should aim to 
have its members Christians as Jesus was the Christ, sons 
of man as he was, sons of God as much as he." " If 
Jesus were ever mistaken, — as the evangelists make it 
appear, — then it is a part of Christianity to avoid his 
mistakes, as well as to accept his truths." " It is Christian 
to receive all the truths of the Bible ; all the truths that are 
not in the Bible just as much. It is Christian also to 
reject all the errors that come to us from without the Bible 
or from within the Bible." " It is only free men that can 
find the truth, love the truth, live the truth. As much 
freedom as you shut out, so much falsehood do you shut 
in." " To think truth is the worship of the head; to do 
noble works of usefulness and charity is the worship of 
the will ; to feel love and trust in man and God is the 
glad worship of the heart." " Christianity should be 
represented as human, as man's nature in its true great- 
ness." " The members of a Christian church should be 
mindful of one another ; they should bear one another's 
burdens ; they should advise and admonish one another : 
the strong should help the weak, the rich the poor." 

" The Christian Church should have an action on others 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 233 

out of its pale ; should live to see its truths extend ; 
should be a means of reforming the world after the pattern 
of Christian ideas ; should bring the sentiments, ideas, 
actions of the times to be judged by the universal stan- 
dard ; should measure the sins of commerce, the sins of the 
State, by conscience and reason, by the everlasting ideas 
on which alone is based the welfare of the world. A 
Christian church should be a society for the promotion of 
true sentiments and ideas, for the promotion of good works. 
It should lead the movement for the public education of 
the people." 

" Here are the needy, who ask for justice more than 
charity. Every beggar, every pauper, condemns our civili- 
zation. Whence come the tenants of our almshouses, 
jails, the victims of vice in all our towns? Why, from 
the lowest ranks of the people, from the poorest and most 
ignorant; say, rather, from the most neglected. What 
have the strong been doing all this while, that the weak 
have come to such a state ? " 

" Does not Christianity say the strong should help the 
weak ? Does not that mean something ? Every alms- 
house in Massachusetts shows that the churches have not 
done their duty; that the Christians lie lies when they 
call Jesus Master, and men brothers. Every jail is a 
monument, on which it is writ in letters of iron that we are 
still heathens : and the gallows, black and hideous, the 
embodiment of death, the last argument a ' Christian ' 
State offers to the poor wretches it trained up to be crimi- 
nals, — it stands there as a sign of our infamy ; and, while it 
lifts its horrid arm to crush the life out of some miserable 
man whose blood cries to God against Cain in the nine- 
teenth century, it lifts the same arm as an index of our 
shame." " Is that all ? Oh, no ! Did not Jesus say, 
1 Resist not evil with evil ' ? Is not war the worst form of 
that evil? and is there on earth a nation so greedy of 
war, a nation so reckless of provoking it, one where the 
20* 



234 THEODORE PARKER. 

war-horse so soon conducts his foolish rider into fame 
and power ? Is that all ? Far from it. Did not Christ 
say, ' Whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, 
do you even so unto them ' ? And are there not three 
million brothers of yours and mine in bondage here, the 
hopeless sufferers of a savage doom, debarred the civili- 
zation' of our age, the barbarians of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, shut out from the pretended religion of Christendom, 
the heathens of a Christian land, the slaves of a Chris- 
tian republic ? The Rock of Plymouth, sanctified by the 
feet which led a nation's way to Freedom's large estate, 
provokes no more voice than the rottenest stone in the 
mountains of the West. The Church is dumb, while the 
State is only silent. While the servants of the people are 
only asleep, 'God's ministers' are dead." 

" In the midst of all these wrongs and sins, amid popu- 
lar ignorance, pauperism, crime and war, and slavery too, 
is the Church to say nothing, do nothing, nothing for the 
good of such, as feel the wrong, nothing to save them who 
do the wrong ? If I thought so, I would never enter the 
Church but once again, and then to bow my shoulders to 
their manliest work, — to heave down its strong pillars, 
arch and dome and roof and wall, steeple and tower, 
though, like Samson, I buried myself under the ruins of that 
temple which profaned the worship of God most high, of 
God most loved. I would do this in the name of man ; 
in the name of Christ I would do it ; yes, in the dear 
and blessed name of God." 

"The Christian Church should lead the civilization of 
the age. It will be in unison with all science ; it will not 
fear philosophy ; it will not lack new truth, daring only to 
quote ; nor be obliged to sneak behind the inspired words 
of old saints as its only fortress, for it will have words 
just as truly inspired, dropping from the golden mouths 
of saints and prophets now. A church truly Christian 
must lead the way in moral enterprises, in every work 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 235 

which aims directly at the welfare of man. There was a 
time when the Christian churches, as a whole, held that 
rank. Do they now ? Oh, no ! — not even the Quakers, 
perhaps the last sect that abandoned it. A prophet filled 
with love of man and love of God is not therein at home. 
I speak a sad truth, and I say it in sorrow. But look at 
the churches of this city : do they lead the Christian 
movements of this city, — the temperance-movement ; the 
peace-movement ; the movement for the freedom of man, 
for education ; the movement to make society more just, 
more wise and good ; the great religious movement of 
these times? Not at all." 

" Christianity is humanity. Christ is the son of man, 
the manliest of men ; pious and hopeful as a prayer, but 
brave as man's most daring thought. He has led the 
world in morals and religion for eighteen hundred years, 
only because he was the manliest man in it, the humanest 
and bravest man in it, and therefore the divinest. He 
may lead it eighteen hundred years more. But the 
churches do not lead men therein ; for they have not his 
spirit, — neither that womanliness that wept over Jerusa- 
lem, nor that manliness that drew down fire from heaven to 
light the world's altars for well-nigh two thousand years." 

"There are many ways in which Christ may be denied : 
one is that of the bold blasphemer, who, out of a base 
and haughty heart, mocks, scoffing at that manly man, and 
spits upon the nobleness of Christ. There are few such 
deniers : my heart mourns for them. But they do little 
harm. Religion is so dear to men, no scoffing word can 
silence that ; and the brave soul of this young Nazarene 
has made itself so deeply felt, that scorn and mockery of 
him are but an icicle held up against the summer's sun. 
There is another way to deny him ; and that is to call him 
Lord, and never do his bidding ; to stifle free minds with 
his words j and, with the authority of his name, to cloak, to 
mantle, screen, and consecrate the follies, errors, sins, of 
men. From this we have much to fear." 



236 THEODORE PARKER. 

" In our day, men have made great advances in science, 
commerce, manufactures, in all the arts of life. We need, 
therefore, a development of religion corresponding thereto. 
Let us have a church in which religion, goodness towards 
men, piety towards God, shall be the main thing. Let us 
have a degree of that suited to the growth and demands 
of this age. Its prayers will be a lifting-up of the hearts 
in noble men towards God, in search of truth, goodness, 
piety. Its sacraments will be great works of reform, in- 
stitutions for the comfort and culture of men. If men 
were to engage in religion as in commerce, politics, arts ; 
if the absolute religion, the Christianity of Christ, were ap- 
plied to life with all the might of this age, — what a result 
should we not behold ! We should build up a great State, 
with unity in the nation, and freedom in the people ; a 
State where there was honorable work for every hand, 
bread for all mouths, clothing for all backs, culture for 
every mind, and love and faith in every heart. Truth 
would be our sermon ; works of daily duty would be our 
sacrament. Prophets inspired of God would minister the 
Word, and Piety send up her psalm of prayer, sweet in its 
notes, and joyfully prolonged. The noblest monument to 
Christ, the fairest trophy of religion, is a noble people, 
where all are well fed and clad, industrious, free, edu- 
cated, manly, pious, wise, and good." 

Brave words are common in ordination-sermons, but sel- 
dom are prophetic of brave deeds. In this case they were. 
The minister of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Soci- 
ety meant to carry out, if possible, what he foreshadowed. 
In a letter to Joseph H. Allen in 1849 he says, "Our 
church in Boston attend a little to the humanities in an 
ecclesiastical sense ; not much, for we are poor. We have 
a Committee of Benevolent Action, who are the almoners 
of the society. Twice a year we take up a collection for 
the poor. Once a fortnight the committee meet in the 
season from October to May, and consult about cases, &c. 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 237 

They keep a record of their doings, and are eminently use- 
ful. They find places for men, women, and children ; and 
the blessing of such as are ready to perish falls upon them. 
Besides that, the members of the society are almost all 
engaged in some of the great reforms ; e.g., antislavery, 
temperance, prisons, &c. But we have no organized eccle- 
siastical action in these matters ; I wish we had : but I 
have not time for all things of that sort. I once hoped to 
have a committee on each of these topics, to report annu- 
ally to the society the condition of each of these reforms. 
Then such as liked one, and not another, could work in 
their own way. But perhaps this is better done as it is ; 
each man connecting himself as he sees fit, without any 
ecclesiastical organization about it." The Sunday school 
was not successful, although he always attended personally, 
and talked pleasantly to the children, telling them a story 
or a parable. Sunday schools rarely prosper in cities ; 
never, probably, in intelligent congregations that choose to 
teach their own children, and improve their Sunday lei- 
sure in their own way. The Saturday- afternoon class 
for young women did better. The women manifested even 
an unusual desire to be considered young : mothers and 
daughters sat side by side like sisters. The minister ex- 
cluded none. He wanted the minds, not the years. He 
welcomed all to the best he had, and introduced all to the 
best they had themselves, with singular skill and delicacy 
drawing them out to speak. He found, on trial, that the 
least severe and systematical method was the best ; but 
he never allowed the conversation to run into gossip or 
inane generalities. The subjects were large and various, 
but were made pointed and kept vital by the pastor's 
watchful mind, which made every question keen, and 
every answer pertinent. The tone of seriousness was never 
lost. " Mr. Parker," said one of the less astute and sensi- 
tive of the company, " what is that feeling which makes 
one person so devoted to another that she will cling to 



238 THEODORE PARKER. 

him through every thing, even drunkenness ? " — "/ cannot 
tell you." — " But you believe in it ; do you not ? " — "Indeed 
I do." He took great pleasure in these meetings ; was at 
much pains to be present ; and would hurry home from lec- 
turing expeditions in order not to miss them. They were 
continued for several years, and covered important fields 
of thought, ethical, social, and religious. The question of 
education in its varying aspects occupied a whole winter ; 
the capacities and duties of women came in for their share 
of consideration ; right habits of reading and listening were 
inculcated • the importance of thoroughness and exactness 
was urged on the young in regard to their mental opera- 
tions ; the influence of sickness, misfortune, calamity, on 
character, were subjects discussed. 

The public Sunday-afternoon discussions proved unman- 
ageable through the presence of. the arch-fiend who goes 
about in the plausible guise of prophet, reformer, or saint, 
and lifts up a shrill, inopportune voice, to the discomfit- 
ure of chairman and listeners. He is deaf to argument 
and entreaty. The voice of the presiding officer has no 
subduing spell. The policeman alone is potent to expel 
the intruder; but the apostle of the free spirit stultifies 
himself by an appeal to force, and Mr. Parker was com- 
pelled to retire to private quarters. 

To organize a society in a city is never easy. There 
are too many occupations ; the workers are all overworked 
in other ways ; the parish method is loose and slow ; 
things worth doing are best done in detail, by individuals 
active in their own places ; the main direction and impulse 
come from the minister, who fee,ls it to be an encumbrance 
and a waste of effort ; the machinery is out of all propor- 
tion to the achievement ; the ropes creak, the pulleys 
groan. The best-intentioned pastor confesses at length 
that the effort of combining the various elements of his 
society for social purposes is more exhausting than profit- 
able. If anybody could make such operations successful, 



THE CONFLICT RENEWED. 239 

Theodore Parker could ; but he boasted of no triumph. 
He was invited to Boston as a preacher. The public 
were interested in his theological opinions. His friends 
wanted his thought on religious themes. His battle with 
the churches had made him famous. The hall was opened 
as an arena for intellectual conflict, not as a room for 
conference-meetings, or an apartment for a Sunday school. 
He might be a pastor in many ways, a teacher in private as 
much as he would ; but before the world he stood as a 
prophet, the inaugurator of a new religious movement, the 
preacher of a new reform, in the line of Luther's, but 
deeper. 

The society was not rich. Radicalism and riches have 
not yet formed alliance : a generation ago, the connection 
was exceedingly loose. The following note tells a story 
common enough on one side, not so common on the 
other : — 

Boston, Oct. 30, 1847. 

My dear Sir, — Last Sunday I learned that the financial 
condition of our society was neither prosperous nor hopeful ; 
indeed, that we are four hundred dollars in debt. I think I 
can help you a little in this difficulty, though not much of a 
business-man ; and accordingly I propose, that, for the year 
1848, my salary should be, not two thousand dollars, but six- 
teen hundred. I can easily make up the other four hundred 
dollars by some other labor, and then the church will not be 
burthened. I beg you to present this proposal to the rest of 
the committee as one cheerfully made on my part, at the same 
time asking them not to mention it to other members of the 
society. 

Believe me, dear sir, truly your friend, 

Theo. Parker. 

To the Treasurer of the 28th Congregational Society. 

This might have been the first, but it was not the last 
time that the devoted minister took less than was offered. 
The clerical calling is rarely lucrative. With him it was 



240 THEODORE PARKER. 

impoverishing ; for it cost him a good deal more than it 
brought him, even in money. Had he been a hireling 
priest, he would have kept nearer the flesh-pots. But the 
Master he followed rated hireling shepherds among thieves 
and robbers. 

This chapter may close with the well-known sonnet, 
which presents the standard he aimed at, and conveys the 
spirit in which he meant to labor : — 

" Dear Jesus, were thy spirit now on earth, 
Where thou hast toiled and wept a world to win, 
What vast ideas would sudden come to birth ! 
What strong endeavors 'gainst o'ermastering sin ! 
Thy blest beatitudes again thou'dst speak ; 
And, with deep-hearted words that smite like fire, 
Wouldst thou rebuke the oppressors of the weak. 
But, turning thence to prophets that aspire, 
How wouldst thou cheer the souls that seek to save 
Their brothers smarting 'neath a despot's rod ; 
To lift the poor, the fallen, and the slave, 
And lead them all alive to worship God ! 
Bigots wouldst thou refuse that hindering stand, 
But send thy gospel-fraught apostles conquering through the 
land." 



CHAPTER XL 



THE PASTOR. 



In January, 1847, Mr- Parker removed from West Rox- 
bury, where he had been living till now, to Boston. A 
house in Exeter Place — a little court, so near to Essex 
Street that his yard was adjacent to that of his friend 
Wendell Phillips — was provided for him. The upper 
floor was thrown into one room for a library. In this house 
he lived till his last sickness took him away: there his 
widow resides still, though the quiet of the spot is invaded 
by business. The household consisted of himself and his 
wife, " whose domestic name is Bear, or Bearsie, and who, 
as usual, is nearly the opposite of her husband, except in 
the matter of philanthropy ; " a young man by the name 
of Cabot, one and twenty years old, an orphan, brought up 
by Mr. and Mrs. Parker from childhood, and treated by 
them as a sort of nephew \ and Miss Stevenson, " a woman 
of fine talents and culture, interested in all the literatures 
and humanities." The entire house was given to hospi- 
tality. The table always looked as if it expected guests. 
The parlors had the air of talking-places, well arranged 
and habitually used for the purpose. The spare bed was 
always ready for an occupant, and often had a friendless 
wanderer from a foreign shore. The library was a confes- 
sional as well as a study : this room, airy, light, and pleas- 
ant, was lined with books in plain cases, unprotected 
by obtrusive glass. Books occupied capacious stands in 
21 241 



242 THEODORE PARKER. 

the centre of the apartment; books were piled on the 
desk and floor. There was but one table, — a writing-table, 
with drawers and extension-leaves, of the common office- 
pattern. A Parian head of the Christ, and a bronze statue 
of Spartacus, ornamented the ledge : sundry emblematical 
bears, in fanciful shapes of wood or metal, assisted in its 
decoration. The writer sat in a cane chair : a sofa close 
by was for visitors. A vase of flowers usually stood near 
the bust of Jesus. Flowers were in the southern windows, 
placed there by gentle hands, and faithfully tended by 
himself. Two ivy-plants, representative of two sisters, 
intwined their arms and mingled their leaves at the win- 
dow-frames. Every morning he watered them, and trained 
their growing tendrils. 

Mr. Parker's feeling for flowers was as delicate as his 
knowledge of them. In the country they were his com- 
panions, in the city his joy. He would never allow his 
flowers to be thrown away because they were faded. The 
drooping cr shrivelled petals falling off to give place to 
the seed-vessel were as beautiful to him in idea as the 
unfolding or ripened bud. Standing one day in his draw- 
ing-room at a table covered with the earliest spring-flowers, 
— flowers which bloomed in his parlor simultaneously with 
their unfolding in the sheltered nook of field or wood, — 
a lady took up a bunch of hepaticas, saying it was one of 
her favorites. "Why?" he asked: "it has no perfume." 
"But think where it grows," she replied : " out of the dead 
leaves of the past year." He started a little ; an emotion 
passed over his face : but he said nothing. The hepatica 
had a deeper root in his affection after that. A vase of 
flowers stood on his pulpit, — the wild flowers in their sea- 
son, cultivated flowers always, — placed there by friends in 
the parish. Their beauty and fragrance crept into sermon 
and prayer. Having thus served in the worship of the 
morning, they went in the afternoon to the chambers of 
the sorrowing and the sick to fulfil the other divine duty 



THE PASTOR. 243 

of love. His love for the wild flowers was almost a pas- 
sion : he watched for their annual return, and knew where, 
for miles around, he should find their first blooming. 
Every year he went to Lexington to gather the earliest 
violets on his mother's grave. In plucking wild flowers, 
he always refrained from taking many from one locality, 
lest he should injure the future growth ; and there were 
friends of his to whom he would not betray the haunts he 
well knew of some of the shyest kinds, lest they should 
exercise on them their propensity for gathering a great 
quantity. He appreciated the gift of flowers. The friend 
who had always been responsible for those on the pulpit 
sent to New York, when he was to sail thence for Havana, 
an order for a bouquet to be placed in his stateroom. 
From Nassau, where the steamer touched for a few hours, 
he sent back to her a pencilled note, enclosing a Nassau 
rose : — 

" Next week I hope to hear the whippoorwill, and see bobo- 
link ; to walk to my old haunts in the woods, and gather my old 
and favorite flowers, . — the arethusa, side-saddle, and lady ''s-slip- 
fier, not forgetting the little dear polygalla. Dear me, how much 
the woods and meadows of Spring Street have been to me ! 
Well, let me learn yet more. Thou, Father, art nearer me in 
the woods, the fields, than elsewhere. I see why men need 
their conferences and prayer-meetings in the city, while in the 
country they are an interruption." 

The following sonnet is from the journal : — 

TO ONE WHO SENT ME FLOWERS ON CHRISTMAS DAY, AND I 
KNEW NOT WHENCE THEY CAME. 

Dear child unknown, there came thy Christmas-flowers, 

A bloom exotic 'mid December's snow, 

Cheering my heart yet more in these glad hours, 

When nought abroad save piety dares blow. 

And yet, my friend, amid a heavier snow, 

A sweeter flower thyself hast been to me. 

'Mid other storms, and in a wintrier woe, 



244 THEODORE PARKER. 

My flower-glad eyes were satisfied with thee. 

Thy comfort brought into my bosom glee, 

Yea, confidence and trust thy look did lend, 

When else in vain I sought tranquillity. 

Thus daughter, sister, mother, wife, and friend, 

To one long nursed in grief's perplexity, 
Little know'st thou what healing cheer thy words could send. 
Dec. 27, 1849. 

Thus with the humblest creatures the pastorate began ; 

but it did not cease with them. 

May 19, 1848. 

It has been one of the beautiful days we sometimes have 
in May. It is summer come in without ringing at the door. 
The thermometer says 90 in the shade ; yet all the morning 
the weather was perfect. Oh, how bright the sky was ! and so 
deep the blue ! Then the grass on the Common was so green, 
and the children so happy, and the dogs so delighted with their 
swim in the Frog Pond ! It did me good to see such a day. I 
feel in love with all creatures on such a day : and such as I 
love most, 1 feel quite tender to; I long for their presence. 
For, when I have any thing so good as existence to-day, I want 
to share it with all I love. 

In the winters of heavy snow he kept a little corn-crib 
in his library, and regularly fed at the window-sill the city 
pigeons deprived of their street-food. They soon found 
where breakfast was to be had, and flocked daily to the 
window ; while he, with delight, watched them as they cooed 
and quarrelled, and hustled each other, and sidewise 
nodded through the pane at him. At table, in a summer 
boarding-place, a thoughtless mother told how merry her 
little boy was over a grasshopper in the kitchen, which was 
making ineffectual struggles to escape from a string by 
which she had fastened it to the table for the child's amuse- 
ment. A blush of indignation and pain passed over his 
face as she spoke. The next moment he was out on the 
grass, watching his rescued captive as it skipped away. 
Friend he was of the insect, and of every thing else that 
needed a helper. 



THE PASTOR. 245 

He was a providence to fretful children in the railway- 
cars with his bag of sugar-plums, and to elder children 
without number. From his eighteenth year, says one who 
knew him well, there was never a time when he was not 
giving to some young person the means for education. 
Many a youth struggling into college or through it felt the 
pressure of his strong uplifting arm, often without knowing 
whence the help came. Those of his parish in West Rox- 
bury he stimulated to study by giving them his precious 
time, correcting their attempts at composition in the most 
attractive way. " Don't write about nightingales, my child : 
listen to the robin and the blue-bird in our fields." Young 
girls without means of obtaining a superior education, 
while there were no State normal schools within reach, re- 
ceived his instruction, often when his busy brain was over- 
tasked with study and care. Nor did he wait for their 
application, but with exploring kindness sought out those 
whom he could help, and gave aid in a spirit so brotherly 
that it could not be refused. The president of Harvard 
College had a standing request to let him know of any 
deserving youth whom a little money would help. He 
counted it a privilege to pay the bills of an incipient 
scholar. No devotion to his studies ever led him to disre- 
gard an appeal for assistance, from whatever quarter. He 
never seemed to feel that there he had any rights which 
man, woman, or child, black or white, was bound to respect, 
but voluntarily tied himself hand and foot, and laid himself 
smiling on the altar of self-sacrifice. Just as he might be 
pouring out upon the paper the full flow of his thoughts, a 
tap at the library-door, answered by the ready " Come ! " 
would bring in some unknown visitor. The pen was quietly 
dipped into the sponge-cup ; the India cane-chair slipped 
round from the desk to the sofa, where the comer was 
invited to sit ; while the genial " What can I do for you ? " 
uttered as quietly as if no torrent had been checked in 
its course, put the two into harmonious relations. 
21* 



246 THEODORE PARKER. 

And what a multitude came to him with their private 
affairs, domestic and personal ! A young Scotchman with 
a general letter " to some Christian minister ;n America," 
seeking employment in his handicraft, is told that the man 
most likely to help him lives at No. 1, Exeter Place. The 
Methodist minister from the country, seeking literary help, 
receives it abundantly. A husband and a wife, each with- 
out the other's knowledge, come to seek counsel in mutual 
estrangement, and learn long afterwards whose wise advice 
it was that made them friends again. The man of culture 
and wealth who would not be seen. at Music Hall goes to 
its preacher for consolation in his hour of affliction. 
Young people with noble aspirations and stifling surround- 
ings look to him for guidance to congenial activities. The 
selfish intruder with private axe to grind ; the ripe scholar, 
wishing to verify a quotation from a classic ; the well-mean- 
ing revivalist, who would pray with him then and there for 
his immediate conversion, and was courteously permitted- to 
try ; the bully, who, believing himself aimed at in a public 
speech, ascended the stairs breathing vengeance, knocked 
at the door with the cane he intended using on the person 
of the occupant, but, forgetting his wrath in the calm pres- 
ence, went subdued away ; the doctor of divinity, wise and 
revered, wanting to see the man who had done such true 
work in the temperance cause ; the young clergyman solicit- 
ing his aid in recovering a faithless husband whose deso- 
lated wife was sure that Mr. Parker could reach the 
delinquent ; anxious mothers seeking counsel about their 
children from the man whose lifelong grief was his child- 
lessness ; public men to consult him on the moral bearings 
of their official action ; chairmen of committees needing a 
skilful pen to write their reports ; the fugitive slave has- 
tening to a way-station, or perhaps a terminus of the " un- 
derground railroad ; " a friend, bringing the first hepatica 
or the latest fringed gentian for the writing-table ; a 
little pet to play an hour with the toys in " Parkie's " 



THE PASTOR. 247 

bureau, put there for the children's amusement ; a Baptist 
clergyman with a polemical manuscript to be revised for 
the press ; a young aspirant for literary fame, with verses 
to be criticised, or a paper whose eager craving for a mag- 
azine he was expected to satisfy, — these are authentic 
cases of visitation, specimens of whole classes of visitants, 
against whom he never shut the door. They consumed 
the time, but never seemed to exhaust the patience, of this 
most hospitable of minds. He had enough of that for the 
maiden's peevish complaint, for the enthusiast's dream of 
a new religion, for the Millerite's vision of the second 
coming, and for the fanatic's howl over the sins of society ; 
and, before the infliction was at the foot of the first flight 
of stairs, the swift pen had taken up the unfinished sen- 
tence, and was speeding along the page as if there had 
been no pause in its work. He was the universal pastor, 
the shepherd of the forsaken sheep. A company of 
friends had planned a journey to Dublin, N.H., for the 
man overworked and sick ; but as he sat at dinner on 
Sunday, the day before the starting, a black woman, poor 
of course, and a stranger, came and asked him to attend 
the funeral of her child on the Tuesday. He let the jour- 
ney pass without hesitation, abandoned it, and did as the 
suppliant desired. He visited prisons, and comforted such 
as were under condemnation. 

The writer of this biography has received fresh testimo- 
nies to his kind thoughtfulness ; the following, for in- 
stance, from a young student, son of his valued friend, S. 
J. May : " Established in Cambridge, he at once extended 
to me that friendship father and mother valued so much, 
and made me familiarly welcome in his quiet, pleasant 
home, and conscious that he was watching over me with 
an unintrusive fatherly care. He constantly inquired as to 
my progress in study, discussed matters on which I was 
engaged, and advised me both in reference to them and 
to the homelier subjects of my health and comfort. I can 



248 THEODORE PARKER, 

hear him coming down stairs, with his tread so firm yet 
light, two steps at a time, from his study, humming or 
whistling some little quiet strain ; and then came his hearty 
hand-shake, and sweet smile, and cordial greeting, in that 
voice with something suggesting gruffness, yet so gentle as 
to be musical. There was never a kinder voice. 

" His meals used always to be exceedingly simple and 
light. But I remember, that, when he discovered I had 
planned a system of diet too meagre, he remarked it, and 
gave me good counsel in regard to more generous food. 
So, discovering that I was sleeping, for economy's sake, 
on a husk mattress, he stopped me one evening as he was 
going up stairs, thrust into my hand a bill, and charged 
me to go at once and get a hair mattress. Every year, 
knowing that my father's means were small, he sent a 
considerable check to me to help pay my college-bills. I 
believe he did the same for more than one of the young 
men in college, whom he had taken likewise under his 
fatherly care. 

" The first Christmas after I entered college, I found a 
package waiting for me at a friend's office. It contained 
a costly dictionary of mythology and biography, with only 
this line : ' Dear Jo, this book is from one who loves 
your father very much, and hopes to like you equally well. 
So be a good boy.' 

" Of all influences whatever which have tended to develop 
in me the religious sentiment, the influence of his charac- 
ter, preaching, and prayers, was altogether and peculiarly 
pre-eminent ; it stands out in my consciousness distinct 
from all others ; and it was the influence of character, of 
which preaching and prayers were only the expression." 

A young girl who had listened to Mr. Parker, being 
about to leave home alone for the first time in her life to 
take charge of a district-school in Pennsylvania, called 
with her father to say good-by, and thank him for what he 
had done for her. Taking from the table at his elbow the 



THE PASTOR. 249 

volume of " Ten Sermons," then recently published, he 
wrote her name with his own, and his good wishes for her ; 
then, with a kiss and a blessing, sent the maiden happy 
away. 

A young woman called on the preacher to borrow a ser- 
mon, a passage whereof had pleased her especially. He 
was not at home. Two days afterward, she met him. He 
had returned her call, and, not finding her in, had left a 
book for her. He now lent her Herbert's " Poems," which 
he was preparing to edit. Subsequently he corresponded 
with her, sent books to her into the country, and gave 
her the use of his library when she was in the city, request- 
ing her to send him abstracts and criticisms of the books 
she read, and descriptions of the people she met. 

The correspondence with this lady, covering a period of 
eleven years, would make an interesting collection of it- 
self. Her letters must have been brilliant, if, as he said 
of them, " They are as good as Bettine's to Goethe, with- 
out the lies." 

The long arm befriended people across the sea. The 
refugee from Germany or Switzerland saw his beckoning 
hand. The foreign scholar was indebted to him for shel- 
ter and employment. He exerted himself to find publish- 
ers for unrecognized works, and to make good terms for 
needy authors who had no name. The exile knew where 
to come for help of all kinds. Purse, mind, heart, were all 
open. He had no theories that prevented him from 
observing the apostolic precept, " Bear ye one another's 
burdens." The strong man helped the weak in the human 
way until social science should find a better. Such notes 
as the following are not infrequent in the journal : — 

ADVENTURES OF A DAY. 

" After attending to numerous little matters belonging to new 
housekeeping, I sat down to complete my sermon ; and there 
came, — 



250 THEODORE PARKER. 

"1. A black man — a quite worthy one — for some pecuniary 
aid. He is a trader in new and second-hand clothes. Borrows 
money sometimes. Commonly pays one-fourth of a cent a day 
on a dollar, — ninety-one per cent a year ; sometimes one-half of 
a cent, — equal to a hundred and eighty-two per cent a year. I 
could not help him, being myself out of money ; but will do what 
I can. 

" 2. An Orthodox minister from Ohio, seeking for aid to erect 
a free church in his State. He wants five thousand dollars. 
He seems a good man, pious in my sense of the word, and 
moral too. With him was another man from the same place, 
who said little. 

" 3. Came a clergyman to talk about the Zoroastrian doctrine 
of the immortality of the soul, and to get Oporin's ' De Immor- 
talitate Mortalium ' which I had imported for him. Mem. — 
He will have the ' Dabistan.' 

" 4. Silas Lamson, with his full beard and white garments. 
He has two machines which he wished me to look at. They 
are to facilitate spading, ploughing, &c. He wants to get them 
before the Exhibition at New York. 

" 5. Mrs. M was here relative to Ned and the medicine 

we sent him yesterday. 

" 6. Greeley Curtis, just from Rome, and- now for California, 
came. I have not seen him in several years. He worked his 
passage to and from Italy, and will work it famously through 
the world. A brave, good fellow. 

" 7. Dear Mrs. Russell came at five, and staid till nine. 
She consecrated the first introduction of the gas into the house : 
so the light of the house and the light of the heart burns at the 
same time. We took tea by the gas for the first time ; lighted 
the parlor and kitchen therewith, and study." 

How did such a man find moments for the books that 
every steamer brought him from England, France, Ger- 
many ? He appropriated their contents as if by an instinct. 
Chatting, he cut the leaves of the thick octavo, turning 
them over slowly one by one. The book is laid down, with 
the paper-knife. " You have not read it, surely ! " — " Try 
me, and judge." He was never caught tripping. The play 



THE PASTOR. 251 

of the mind went on in separate strata, as it were, each 
department of thought following its own lines with undis- 
turbed serenity, and leaving its broad trail as it proceeded. 
The feelings never interfered with the working of the 
strong mechanism. The powers that received and the 
powers that distributed had a perfect understanding; so 
that, while the master was temporarily absent on lighter 
business, the obedient faculties performed their duty. It 
was as if the man had a double consciousness, — one out- 
side of him, and one inside ; the one chatting in the street 
while the other toiled in the office : but neither contra- 
dicted what the other said. 

" O thou great Friend to all the sons of men, 
Who once appeared in humblest guise below 
Sin to rebuke, to break the captive's chain, 
To call thy brethren forth from want and woe ! 
Thee would I sing. Thy truth is still the light 
Which guides the nations groping on their way, 
Stumbling and falling in disastrous night, 
Yet hoping ever for the perfect day. 
Yes, thou art still the life ; thou art the way 
The holiest know, — light, life, and way of heaven ; 
And they who dearest hope and deepest pray 
Toil by the truth, life, way, that thou hast given ; 
And in thy name aspiring mortals trust 

To uplift their bleeding brothers rescued from the dust." 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE PASTOR. SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 

Theodore Parker tended flocks on distant hills. 
His correspondence shows the extent and the delicacy 
of his care. The copied letters and notes of all kinds, 
which are but a portion of all he wrote, are contained in 
seven bound volumes of quarto size, and number nine 
hundred and forty-eight. Besides these are piles of 
manuscript epistles to intimate friends, — to one, ninety 
letters and fifty-three notes ; to another, thirty-nine letters, 
long, and full of various matter. The correspondence 
with one dear friend in Europe covers three hundred 
pages folio. In addition to all this, private notes in 
great numbers were sent in response to the present 
biographer's call. And these are but a part ; for many 
were not kept at all, many were lost, and many are held 
back from all eyes but those to which they were sent. 
They are of every conceivable description, and of every 
measure of length. Some are treatises on politics, theol- 
ogy, social ethics, philosophy, agriculture ; and some are 
notes of three lines : but, whether long or short, they con- 
tain the writer's peculiar quality. Each had a purpose, 
and accomplished it. They were written to statesmen, 
politicians, governors, senators, presidents, men of letters, 
clergymen, scholars, men of science, historians, teachers, 
farmers, trades-people, boys at school, girls at home, 
friends in sorrow. The five minutes before dinner or bed, 
252 



THE PASTOR. 253 

the spare half-hour on a railway-train, between the finish- 
ing of one book and the opening of another, were used 
in this cordial way. When his intimates were absent, it 
was his custom to send them almost daily some word of 
greeting, always bright, often humorous, never other than 
affectionate. They lie before me now, scores of these 
hurried missives, in queer hieroglyphics of pen or pencil, 
often quite illegible to unfamiliar eyes, but never so to 
the sensitive feeling ; for the lovingness burns through 
the shapeless words, and communicates itself. If these 
papers could be printed, — he in his simple-heartedness 
saw no reason why they should not be, — they would do 
much more than convince the world that Theodore Par- 
ker was one of the tenderest hearts that ever beat, the 
truest of friends, the most sympathetic of men ; they 
would illustrate the beautiful mission of letter-writing, 
the loving ministries of note-paper, the sweet uses to 
which the spare moments of the busiest day may be de- 
voted, the possibility of making the pen the vehicle of 
pure feeling, just sufficiently weighted with thought not to 
be evanescent. 

Of course, in a volume of these limited dimensions, to 
print many letters in full is impossible. The biographer's 
wish is to present Theodore Parker, not his literary 
remains ; and this will best be done by giving specimen- 
letters, and portions of letters, so as to exhibit him in his 
several relations to men and women. Those who desire 
to read many important letters in full are referred to the 
biography by Mr. Weiss, whose selection is as admirable 
as it is copious. That I should in some instances print 
the same letters that he did is necessary; for we both 
have sought the most characteristic ones : but whereas he 
took such as were most interesting in themselves, either 
on account of the subject or the treatment, the present 
biographer has chosen such as best illustrated the texture 
and breadth of the writer's sympathies. We will begin 



254 THEODORE PARKER. 

with the most personal and private, — the pastoral epis- 
tles, as they may well be called. 

To David A. Was son. 

Boston, June 14, 1857. 
My dear Mr. Wasson, — Please tell me what pecuniary 
means you have for your journey to Europe. Perhaps my wife 
and I can add our two mites thereto. Tell me how you are, and 
when you sail. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Parker. 

Boston, Oct. 26, 1857. 

My dear Wasson, — How glad I am to know you are safe 
back in New England once more ! I have not ceased to think 
of you since you left us last May, looking so sick, and yet try- 
ing to be so determined. Tell me all about yourself: that is the 
matter of interest now. How well are you ? Where are you 
sick ? What are the symptoms ? What treatment do you 
receive ? Where shall you pass the winter ? Tell me all. 

Shall I send you fifty dollars now, or a little later ? It shall 
be just as you like. At all events, I shall send it. 

Thanks for the kind interest you take in me. I shall prize 
Dr. Wilkinson's prescription, and never look on the pretty 
flower the plant bears without thinking of him. When you 
write, thank him kindly from me for his affectionate concern 
for me. I think I am now doing pretty well. I can work with 
about half of my former powers. Have a trouble in my side, 
but hope to outgrow it (!) My brothers and sisters died at about 
my age ; yet I think I shall go round the " Cape." Give your- 
self no concern about me : take thought for yourself. German 
will do you good if you take it in 7noderate doses. 

My wife and Miss Stevenson both send their love to you and 
yours. Faithfully, 

Theodore Parker. 

Boston, Dec. 5, 1857. 
My dear Wasson, — Here is a check for fifty dollars, 
which please accept with the best good wishes of Mrs. Parker 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 255 

and myself. Let us know how you are in these days. Please 
ask your two excellent doctors if electricity would not help 
you. Love from Mrs. Parker and Miss Stevenson. 
Yours truly and hastily, 

Theodore Parker. 

Rev. Friederich Mttnch. 

West Roxbury, Oct. 12, 1846 
Dear Sir, — Your letter of Sept. 23 has just come to hand. 
I thank vou for the frankness with which you speak about reli- 
gious and theological matters, and rejoice most heartily in your 
desires and efforts to restore rational Christianity, which is the 
onlv real Christianity. I shall be happy to serve you in any 
way that is possible. I think your book had better be pub- 
lished at Boston. If you will send me the manuscript, I will do 
all in my power to find a publisher, and make no doubt that I 
shall succeed: if I cannot, I will return it to you without cost 
But I think the book would sell better, and sooner find a circle 
of readers, if you should write a little account of yourself, tell- 
ing where you were born, educated, &c. It might be brief as 
the biographical articles in the " Conversations Lexicon." I think 
you need not hesitate to send the manuscript by mail. The 
postmaster will tell you how to send it with the least expense. 
Then, if there be any profit from the sale, I will take charge of 
it, and send the money to you. ... I knew Dr^Follen very 
well. His wife is a relative of my wife. She has long^been my 
parishioner, neighbor, and friend. I saw some of Dr. Follen's 
relatives — a brother at Zurich, and a sister at Berne — a few years 
ago, and prize them highly. I rejoice to find that you are labor- 
ing in the great field of rational Christianity, and welcome you 
as a brother. I have myself written a little book on that theme. 
If you were not so distant, I would send it to you : as it is, I 
send only a couple of sermons, which will show you my Stand- 
punct and that of the church which I have gathered together in 
Boston. The Unitarians as a body have done a great work 
already : they have fought against the old Orthodoxy (so called), 
against total depravity, the eternal damnation of men, and the 
like. Some things I think they have done wrong : much they 
have failed to do. Now a new Richtung begins to show itself ; 
but it finds small favor with the mass of Unitarian clergy, 



256 THEODORE PARKER. 

though much with the people. This new tendency, I think, is to 
do much good. It aims at absolute religion, the Christianity 
of Christ ; takes the Bible as a helper, not as master. I know 
none in Germany who exactly represents this tendency. De 
Wette, perhaps, comes the nearest to it ; but he keeps back a good 
deal, I fear, and does not speak out clearly. A merciless war- 
fare is waged by the Philisterei of the old party in the new 
school ; but it is fought with very dull weapons, though 
poisoned ones. . . . When you write, address me, if you please, 
at West Roxbury, Mass., near Boston. 

Believe me truly your friend, 

Theo. Parker. 

To Dr. Fock. 

Boston, June 27, 1851. 

f My dear Sir, — I received your letter of the 27th of May 
a fortnight ago, and immediately made inquiries to see what can 

\ be done for you if you should come to America. It will be 
difficult for you to find a suitable employment. If you were a 
blacksmith, a carpenter, a fiddler, or a beer-house keeper, you 
would succeed well enough. But America is not a good coun- 
try for a theologian or a philosopher. We have many colleges 
in America ; but all but one are in the hands of Calvinists, who 
would be afraid of you : they would fear your philosophy and 
your freedom of thought. I think it would not be easy to find 
a position in any of them. One college {Universitat) is in the 
hands of the Socinians (Unitarians), — Harvard College, at Cam- 
bridge, near Boston ; but there is no place vacant there. Still 
I may be mistaken about some of the colleges in the western 
parts of America. If you come, we will do all that we can for 
you ; but I am a very unpopular man, and must therefore work 
for you in secret. My theological opinions, and my opposition 
to American slavery, have made me so hateful to many here, that 
it would not be wise in you to mention 77te as one of yoiir friends. 
I have lately seen Herr Edouard Pelz, a German who was 
driven from Leipzig by the police. He""rlas been in prison in 
Prussia for his writings : he has written many little works. He 
has been two months at New York, and edits a literary journal. 
He thinks, if you have money enough to support yourself for a 
year, that your success is certain. At Boston there are ten 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 257 

thousand Germans, with three or four churches, — one Catholic. 
At New York there are sixty thousand or seventy thousand, and 
in the suburbs of New York ( Vorstadte?i) thirty thousand or forty 
thousand more : so there are not many places in Germany 
where you will find so many Germans as these. If you desire 
to come to America, you had better land at New York, and not 
Boston. It will give me pleasure to be of service to you in any 
way, and I will do all that I can to help you if you come ; for I 
sympathize most deeply with you and with your unhappy coun- 
try in her great trial. I would recommend you to write to my 
excellent friend Dr. J. G. Fliigel, American consul at Leipzig, 
who will give you advice as to the mode of getting to America. 
At New York, when you arrive, if you will visit Mr. Rudolph 
Garrigue (No. 2, Barclay Street, under the Astor House), book- 
seller, he will give you information about the Germans in New 
York. Please let me know, if you decide to come, in what ship 
you embark, and at what time: then I will do all that I can to 
aid you, and may, perhaps, secure you some friends. But your 
first year must be a hard one. You do not mention that you 
have a wife : if not, your condition will be more fortunate ; for a 
man alone can endure much. 

Believe me faithfully your friend, 

Theodore Parker. 

To Prof t Felton. 

Boston, June 19, 1851. 

Dear Sir, — I am well aware that it is not according to the 
etiquette of gentlemen that I should write you a note like this, 
after all that you have publicly written about me ; but as I 
never entertained any unkind feelings towards you, and never 
doubted that you were as faithful to your own conscience as I 
was to mine, I do not feel that I am doing a wrong to you or 
myself in writing what follows. Of course, you will do as you 
like about attending to it. 

I left a long letter (from Dr. Lobeck to me) with Dr. Walker 
to hand to you (for I did feel some scruples in calling upon you 
at your house), hoping you would take an interest in a brother 
Grecian. His "Book of Ionic Questions" speaks for itself, and 
I think you have seen that. Can you help the poor man to any 
place where he can get bread for himself, his lie^liche Frau 
22* 



258 THEODORE PARKER. 

and drej^Kinder? It is a hard case, and one that touches 
my heart most tenderly. I wish you would inform me if you 
can do any thing for him ; for I shall write him soon as I can 
ascertain what he can do here. 

Truly yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

To Mr. and Mrs. John Bigelow, Medford 

Friday, Feb. 6, 1852. 

My dear good Friends, — How much I rejoice with you 
in the Jlne healthy little boy, the little immortal left in your mortal 
arms ! I rejoice with you with all my heart, and thank you for 
letting me know of this new advent, thus making me a partner 
in your happiness. I was almost afraid — you had lived so long 
in Exeter Place, and been so near a neighbor to us — that your 
silver-wedding might be like ours, when it shall come, — the re- 
joicing of only two. 

It is my lot to have no little darlings to call my own ; yet all 
the more I rejoice in the heavenly blessings of my friends. 
The thing that I miss most deeply in coming from Roxbury to 
Boston is the society of my neighbors' little children, whom I 
saw several times a day, and fondled, and carried, and trotted, 
and dandled in all sorts of ways, as if they had been my own. 

Well, God bless the life that is. given, and the life that is 
spared, and the life that rejoices in them both ! 

I thank the new mother for remembering an old friend at 
such an hour : so give her my most affectionate greetings, and 

believe me 

Happily yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

To William Sturgis, Esq. 

Boston, Nov. 31, 1855. 
Dear Sir, — Fourteen years ago this month, I delivered a 
course of lectures on matters pertaining to religion in Boston. 
A few minutes before I began to speak, while I felt such agonies 
of embarrassment and fear as I hope never to know again, you 
came and sat down beside me, and strengthened me. I have 
been thankful ever since ; and now beg" you to accept the volume 
which accompanies this note, with the grateful regards of 
Yours truly, 

Theo. Parker. 



SPECIMEN'S OF CORRESPONDENCE. 259 

To J. B. Parker. 

Boston, April 28, 1853. 
Dear John, — The house will be a nice thing. It is well 
to own the house you live in, but not dwelling-houses in general. 
But there are several things to be considered. There is, 1st, The 
insurance, which is not much at the Mutual ; 2d, The cost of 
annual repairs ; 3d, The fact that the house wears out in per- 
haps a hundred years, so that you consume one per cent of the 
principal a year. All this is to be considered ; but you pay for 
these in the shape of rent to some other man, who considers all 
this when he makes up the rent. I hope you will buy a nice 
house, such as you like, with sun in the kitchen. A house on 
the south side of the street is worth much more than one on 
the north. You want the sun in the back part. Love to all. 
Truly yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

To Mrs. Martha P. Dingee, York, Penn. 

Boston, June 27, 1856. 
My dear Martha, — I don't know what to advise Charles. 
It seemed to me a little rash on his part to take a farm so early 
in life, with so little acquaintance with the country and its ways ; 
but I suppose he knew better than I. I don't like to advise him 
at such a distance, with so little knowledge of the facts. But 
one thing I am sure of, — if he goes back to Lexington, he will 
do nothitig, and, ten years hence, will be driving so?ne other man 'j- 
milk-cart for eighteen dollars a month, with no chance of any 
better fortune before him for life. I trust he will not waste his 
time and money in a visit ; and also that he will not return to 
live here. It seems so cowardly and unmanly to give up de- 
feated ! The Illinois Company makes good offers ; but, if I 
were he, I think I should take government land at a dollar and 
twenty-five cents the acre, as so many thousands do every year. 
But I should work for others till I had two things, — 1st, a little 
experimental knowledge ; and. 2d, a little ready money. You see 
the Illinois Railroad Company will sell land for five dollars an 
acre on credit, or four dollars for cash. It is so with every 
thing. Let him work a few years on wages, and sa,ve his money, 
and then he can buy land when he will. He can lay by from a 



260 THEODORE PARKER. 

hundred to a hundred and fifty dollars a year, — say a hundred 
and twenty-five dollars. Here, then, is the state of the case if 
he puts the money out at interest, seven per cent : — ■ 

1857 earns and saves $125. Puts at interest. 

1858 " " " 125. Interest $8.75 equal $133.75. 

1859 " " " 125. " 9.36 " .143.11. 
i860 " " " 125. " io.oi " 153.12. 

Then on the 1st of January, 1861, he will have $554.98 of his 
own earnings and savings. With that he can buy land where 
he likes, and he will have such experience as enables him to buy 
nicely. He has made a bad experiment : he must be wiser next 
time. But to return to Lexington would be a yet worse experi- 
ment : he might as well go into partnership with " Bije Perry " 
at once, as general loafer. 

I am glad to see that Charles has improved in his spelling; 
but he still seems to think it a severe task to write a letter, and 
so only does it at rare intervals. I see no reason why he should 
not become a thriving man. 

Now, with many and the kindest regards for yourself and 
yours, believe me 

Affectionately your uncle, 

Theodore. 

To George E. Cabot. 

Boston, Aug. 24, 1858. 
My dear Georgie, — Have not seen the old gentleman for 
a whole month ! Never away from him so long since 1848 ! I 
was quite sorry not to find you the last day I went in town, but 

was glad to hear such good things from my wife. Mr. F 

pays you a large salary. I hope you will be sure to earn and 
deserve it all. I have always made it a rule to earn a little more 
than I was paid for. But the difficulty with young men often is 
to keep and save what they actually receive. Have a good care 
of that. You know your fortune depends on your earning and 
saving. If I know you, I think you are a very good young man. 
I don't know any immoral habit that you have, and I hope I 
shall never hear of any. You have an excellent opportunity to 
acquire a reasonable fortune. If you conduct well, and save 
your money, by the time you are five and twenty you will be 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 261 

able to many some suitable young woman whom you love and 
who loves you. I don't know who it is : perhaps you do not yet, 
but will find out in due time. I am glad you are staying at Mr. 
Thayer's to take care of the house and the girls. I trust you 
will prove worthy of the confidence they place in you. Inno- 
cent young people can have a good time together when the un- 
worthy must not be trusted. It is my birthday. I am forty-eight 
years old ! — more than twice as old as you. When you are as 
old, I hope you will be a better and more useful man. I shall be 
at home next Thursday afternoon, I think ; but am not quite sure. 
. Affectionately yours, T. P. 

West Roxbury, April 17, 1846. 
My dear little Niece, — I thank you for your note ask- 
ing my advice ; and will give it, as you ask me. I would advise 
you by all means to do just as you think proper and right. But, 
if you were I, you would go without any hesitation. The advan- 
tages for you are very great. To go amongst strangers is one 
of the best things which could happen to you. You will see a 
beautiful country, new forms of society, and a whole set of new 
things. It will give you new ideas, make you more of a woman, 
and be an exceeding great help to you. You know the proverb, 
" Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits ; " and there is- a 
great deal of truth in»it. I hope you will go. Surely you will, 
if you have any spirit of enterprise in you ; and I think you have 
a good deal of it, and hope to see more. Don't be afraid of 
getting out of the reach of your mother's apron-strings. You 
can walk alone now, and it will do you good to walk alone. 
You may feel a little homesick for a week or so, but will soon 
find new friends, or make them. Write me as soon as you 
make up your mind, and tell me when you shall go.- If possible, 
I will go there with you, see you comfortably settled and fixed 
down, and will then as now wish you all manner of pleasant 
things : so believe me 

Truly your affectionate uncle, T. 

An Anonymous Letter of Advice. 

Boston, Feb. 2, 1853. 
Dear Sir, — I do think you did wrong to be married under 
such circumstances. I think it was not wise to leave for a 



262 THEODORE PARKER. 

wider field, when no wider one was in sight ; and you left a cer- 
tainty for an uncertainty. It seems to me it would not be a 
very difficult thing for a hearty young man, with good abilities 
and good courage and a good heart, to pay off a few hundred 
dollars, or a few thousand dollars even, if he is industrious and 
economical. I don't wonder at the feeling you speak of in — — . 

I hope you are not going to break poor 's heart with sorrow, 

disappointment, and chagrin. She is your wife : you are bound 
to treat her more tenderly than yourself ; to sacrifice your own per- 
sonal predilections for her. You say she must have a husband 
whom she can admire and be proud of. It is for you to give 
her such a husband ; to make such a husband for her out of 
yourself. It is not manly in you to be out of employment. 
There is a deal of work to be done in the ministry, in the Uni- 
tarian ministry : there was never such a time for a real living 
man to do a manly work. It is much easier now than ten, or 
eight, or even six years ago. There are more parishes vacant, 
looking for earnest and religious men. There was never a time 
when idleness in a minister was such a stigma and reproach. 
If you have any conscience in you, you will work ; if you have 
any manhood in you, you will work. Not only is there the 
general call of duty addressing every religious man, but the 
special call of duty to you as a husband ; and this also is 
the voice of God. You can find an opportunity to preach, I 
doubt not. Let the new responsibilities of marriage stir you to 

fresh efforts. I beg you not to put the self-denial on , but 

to take that to yourself. You are young and vigorous. The 
world is before you, and a noble and religious career of honor- 
able service if you will. 

Yours truly, 

Theo. Parker. 

West Roxbury, July 10, 1847. 
My dear Patience, — I have not had a convenient opportu- 
nity to write you before. In your note you do not give me very 
distinctly to understand why you expect to lose the love and 
affection of your friends. It seems to me that you may " study 
the laws of the Spirit," and live the life of the Spirit, without los- 
ing the affection, or even the sympathy, of your friends. The laws 
of the Spirit may be as well studied in one place, or one sphere 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 263 

of life, as another. Living itself affords the material of that 
study ; and the study consists in reflecting on the material thus 
given. But perhaps you are looking for some new form of 
activity in which to work. I am no judge of that : you must 
determine that for yourself. But I hope you will not mistake 
any transient impulse, which has its origin in some physical 
derangement, for a serious monition of a lasting duty. I know 
you will be faithful to your own convictions of duty : my only 
fear is that you should decide without due deliberation, and with- 
out a complete understanding of your own case. Then, of course, 
the decision will be incorrect, and the result vanity and vexation 
of spirit. Would not it be well to state distinctly to yourself 
what it is that you wish to do, and how you wish to do it ? 
then you will know exactly what you are about, and not "fight 
as one that beateth the air." 

I know you will be true to yourself, but only fear lest you 
should not always consult your per?nanent self, but only a 
fleeting emotion of the day or the night. If I can ever be of 
any help to you, you know it will give me great pleasure to be 
so. So, dear Patience, 

Farewell ! T. P. 

West Roxbury, Feb. 7, 1845. 

My dear Patience, — I thank you for your kind and sea- 
sonable letter. It came, as your letters always come, at the 
right time. I have delayed a little while my reply, because I 
have been too much occupied to find time to write any letters 
but the most urgent : so you will excuse my delay with the same 
charity you have always extended to me. 

What you say of the love of God is true and beautiful. I 
understand your feelings and your experience ; at least, I think 
so. No one can dwell too deeply in the love of God ; for it is the 
noblest sentiment we are capable of feeling ; and it leads out to 
a love of truth, goodness, usefulness, loveliness ; for these are 
among the modes in which we conceive of God. It leads, there- 
fore, in a sound and healthy state of mind, to a life full of 
truth, goodness, usefulness, and loveliness. But there is always 
a danger that such as dwell in this sentiment should lose them- 
selves in contemplation ; become dreamers, not doers; and so 
should be abundant in the blossoms of piety, and yet bring no 



264 THEODORE PARKER. 

fruit to perfection ; so that, when the Lord comes seeking fruit, 
he shall find leaves only. Now, there is always a strong temp- 
tation for a mystical man, and I think still more strong for a 
mystical woman, to dwell amid the sentimental flowers of religion, 
charmed with their loveliness, and half bewildered with their 
perfume, so to say, — a danger lest common sins of the times 
should not be thought so sinful and injurious as they really are ; 
and lest the man should sit down patient and contented, not 
heeding his brother's condition, nor helping him out of the ditch 
into which he has fallen. At a certain stage of religious prog- 
ress we lose sight of the human element ; we look perpetually 
at the divine ; we think God does all ; we resign ourselves uncon- 
sciously to his will ; our own will ceases to be. Many stop there, 
and stop in outward inaction ; then they become one-sided, and 
at length dwindle. But, if a man goes on, he catches sight of the 
human again, and does not lose the divine. He serves God 
consciously, and knowingly lives in obedience to the Great One. 
He ceases to be one-sided, but loves God with all his under- 
standing and reason, as well as with all his heart. Then, 
too, though he loves contemplation none the less, he loves 
action all the more. The one lives like a worm in the heart of an 
apple, fattens and grows, and then flies off : the other not only 
grows and fattens, but comes out, not a moth, but a bee, and 
visits all the flowers of the garden, culling from all its sweets, 
but carries off honey for other bees, and builds up the comb, — 
the residence of future bees that are to rejoice in his labors. We 
must not only fly, but, as we mount up, we must take others on 
our wings ; for God gives one more strength than the rest only 
that he may therewith help the weak. I hope you will one of 
these days come and see us, and let us talk with you. I had a 
very pleasant .conference with Mr. Hall the other day. I wish 
there were more such men in pulpits. 

Remember me to your parents and sisters, and believe me, as 
always, 

Truly your friend and brother, 

Theo. Parker. 

West Roxbury, Oct. 27, 1845. 
My dear Patience, — I did not hear of your affliction until 
Saturday, or I should have come up to see you instantly. Now I 



/ 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 265 

am obliged to go off for some few days : so I fear I shall not 
see you till next week. I hope you not only sustain yourself 
with a Christian fortitude, but are able also to comfort your 
father, whose afflictions are greater than your own, and your sis- 
ters, who naturally will look to you for consolation in this hour 
of sorrow. I know you will be calm, resigned, lying low in the 
hand of God. I know you will know that all is for the greatest 
good of her that is gone and those she has left behind. I hope 
you will be able to cheer hearts which are sadder than your own. 
They will see more than patience in you, I doubt not, even resig- 
nation, cheerful acquiescence in the will of the Great One, who 
always is doing us good, not less when he causes us to weep 
than when he makes us smile. I beg you to assure your father 
of my sincere sympathy for him, in this loss, and my hope that 
he will find comfort and peace. Let your sisters see and feel that 
you are superior to affliction, and you will gradually take away 
the grief of this sudden wound, and at last heal it. I have time 
to say no more ; for I go presently : so good-by ! 
Sincerely, 

Theo. Parker. 

To Miss Etta M. White, Salem, Mass. 

Boston, Oct. 12, 1857. 

My dear Miss White, — It gave me great pleasure to 
receive your letter, which I have just this moment laid aside. 
Thank you for the generous feelings you express to me. 
Gratitude is one of the rarest as well as fairest of the Christian 
virtues. But you need not feel so much towards me j for it 
gives me more pleasure to help you a little than it does 
you to receive the help. Besides, am I not paying an old 
debt ? Your father was one of my earliest teachers. He put 
me upon the study of Latin when I was a little boy, and 
took great pains with me. I must not forget that. I trust 
you will take good care of your health : all your success 
will depend upon that. Don't sacrifice it even to desire 
of excellence in your studies. I hope you will take regular 
exercise in the open air, and be sure to have warm clothing. 
Salem is a damp, chilly, east-windy place, and, I think, not quite 
healthy. The more care will be needful on your part. 

Where do you go to meeting ? Whom do you know at 
2 3 



266 THEODORE , PARKER. 

Salem ? When I visit the town, I shall certainly come and see 
you. If you are ever in Boston, both my wife and I shall be 
glad to see you at No. i, Exeter Place. 

Believe me faithfully your friend, 

Theo. Parker. 

To Mr. Henry A. Wilcox, Mendon, III. 
Mr. Wilcox. Boston, Oct. 10, 1856. 

Dear Sir, — Your case is a very hard one ; but I do not know 
what advice to give you. It would be in vain to venture to Bos- 
ton or any of the Eastern towns, where the avenues to all kinds 
of business are more crowded than with you at the West. I 
feel the warmest sympathy with you, and trust that patient 
efforts will secure you the victory in the end. There are several 
modes which men try to overcome an enemy withal : one is to 
knock him ' down ; another to talk him down ; but I think the 
manly way is to live him down. After a little while, farmers will 
sow the wheat which gives the largest crop of the best kind of 
grain, and will not care much by what name it is called. If 
Hebrew wheat yields only ten bushels to the acre, and Heathen 
wheat yields thirty of a better quality, the bad name won't 
keep the wheat from the fields. 

It is always pleasant to try and live down the evil name which 
good deeds bring on a man. You are always sure of the peace- 
ful victory at last. 

Believe me yours truly, 

Theo. Parker. 

To H A. Wilcox. 
Mr. Wilcox. Boston, April 15, 1858. 

Dear Sir, — I thank you for your kind letter, but fear your 
others must have miscarried ; for I have answered all I have 
ever received. You may not have received all my replies. I 
am glad you like farming. It is the most natural, and so the 
most healthy, of all human employments. Omitting all who die 
before twenty years of age, the average age of farmers in Mas- 
sachusetts, at death, is sixty-four ; that of printers, thirty-six. 
After they reach the age of majority (twenty-one), the printers 
live fifteen years ; the farmers, forty-three. 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 267 

I am not astonished that you find the head saves the hands. A 
man with a good head and no hands at all can direct the muscles 
of a thousand men. It is a good profession for one's whole 
life. I am sorry to find it is no more popular. In Europe it is 
the favorite employment with a great mass of men. It is not 
fast enough or noisy enough for the Americans. 

I send you a couple of little sermons of mine lately printed, 
which please accept with the best wishes of 
Yours truly, 

Theodore Parker. 

To Mr. James B. Patterson, Dayton, O. 

Boston, Feb. 28, 1855. 

Dear Young Friend, — I am the person whom you met 
in the cars, and parted from at Albany. I sought you in the 
cars ; but, in the dim light, I failed to find you. I took a good 
deal of interest in the bright young face, looking so pure and 
hopeful, and thinking, that, some five and twenty years ago, I 
was on the same road that you are now. I am sorry that you 
have met with the " misfortune " you refer to. It certainly casts a 
shade over a young man's prospect for the moment, not for the 
day. You have a good start thus far, and seem to have laid 
the foundation well. It will be no misfortune, in the end, that 
you must get your own education. It will bring out the deep, 
manly elements at an earlier period ; will make you more 
thoughtful when you would else have been more gamesome 
and playful. If you are a teacher, you can find much time to 
study by yourself. I began to teach when seventeen years old, 
and continued it for four winters, working at home on my 
father's farm in the other parts of the year. I always found 
from eight to ten hours a day for study, besides the work-hours 
in school. Then I taught a high school for three years more, 
and kept far ahead of the class in college of which I was a 
(nominal) member. You can do all that, and perhaps more. 

Perhaps it will be well to pursue the same studies you would 
have taken at college, with the addition of such as belong to 
your calling as teacher ; or you may, perhaps, teach till you 
accumulate money enough to go through the college at a later 
date. No good thing is impossible to a serious and earnest 
young man with good abilities and good moral principles. 



268 THEODORE PARKER. 

But, above all things, be careful of your health. Your suc- 
cess depends on a sound body. Do not violate the laws which 
God writes in these tables of flesh. 

Let me know where you go and what you find to do, and I 
will write you again when more at leisure. 
* Truly your friend, 

Theo. Parker. 

To Miss Abby M. Parker, Savannah, Ga. 

Boston, Feb. 6, 1852. 

My dear Miss Parker, — I am truly obliged to you for 
your kind letter. I am glad you have had the opportunity to 
visit another land, see other skies, and become acquainted with 
forms of social life so unlike ours in New England. The long- 
ing for home is natural, and painful too, I know very well ; but 
it will not be without good results in years to come. It is a 
good thing, in the early part of life, to fill the eye with pictures 
of lovely things, — in the North with our shaggy forests, moun- 
tains, &c. ; in the South with the varied and beautiful vegeta- 
tion of tropic-lands ; in all countries with the stars, the little 
flowers, the forms of animals, and the faces of handsome men 
and women, especially of children. All these things help 
educate the sense of the beautiful, give delight at the time, and 
furnish a world of loveliness for the imagination to wander in 
at other times, when there is no object of delight for the 
senses, and no special thing to interest the mind. You have 
the opportunity to add to your store of such things ; and the 
absence of society, of near friends, and of books, will force 
these things upon your eye, to remain there forever. 

I never thought you would like to live at Savannah all your 
life ; but you will return better in health, I trust, and with the 
happy result of your experience. I shall value the flowers 
very much which you speak of. I have heard my friends 
speak of the abundance and beauty of the flowers in your 
neighborhood. Perhaps you will find it a pleasant thing for 
yourself to gather a flower from each spot you visit, press 
it in a book, — putting the date and place in the margin, — and 
so keep a diary of blossoms as the day-book of your travels. 
I always do so in my rambles about the world, and find my 
flower-books the most valuable records. 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 269 

If you get time, and feel the inclination, I hope you will 
write me again ; for I love to keep my eye on the minds of my 
young friends when they wander off from me. We have had 
some things here that would have interested you this winter, — 
concerts by the Germanians, the Musical Finid Association, 
&c, and, best of all, six lectures from Mr. Emerson. The 
latter you may read some day. Accept my kind and friendly 

Truly yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

To M. M. Parker. 

Boston, May 16, 1852. 

My dear Martha, — I was glad to receive your letter, 
which has just come to hand ;• and quite pleased to find you 
like your new situation. I am always afraid, in so small a 
school, you will not have enough to do. It is better to have 
too much than too little. If you have not enough to do, the 
mind grows sluggish, and all the faculties deteriorate. 

I hope you will improve the opportunity to learn French and 
drawing. I would do so by all means. In learning to draw, 
do not confine yourself to copying prints, but draw from 
nature also. Hang up a cabbage-leaf or a burdock, with its 
side towards you, and draw that ; then hang it a little edge- 
wise (so as to see half of its breadth), and then draw again. 
I think this will help you much. 

I think you need society, the acquaintance of educated and 
refined persons. I would take every opportunity to meet such 
persons. At York I think you will find many agreeable and 
instructive persons. 

Shakspeare you will find a mine of beauty and of rich wisdom. 
"Hamlet" it will be worth while to read over twenty or thirty 
times, till you know it thoroughly, and can repeat all the finest 
pieces. If you come in contact with a copy of Byron, you had 
better read that carefully ; delightedly I know you will. I 
tried to get for you a copy of " The Cyclopaedia of English Lit- 
erature " when you went to Pennsylvania ; but found none. 
Some time, when I see you, I will bring it. I shall not attend 
the Convention this year. I wish I could ; but I have so much 
to do at home, that I have no time for such an expedition this 
year. 

23* 



270 THEODORE PARKER. 

Give my regards to the Wrights and the Townsends, and 
believe me truly 

Your friend, 

Theo. Parker. 

To a Young Woman. 

Boston, Dec. 14, 1855. 
My dear little Maiden, — "The course of true love 
never did run smooth: " so is it writ in many a history. This 
particular affair may turn out quite different from what it now 
appears. There may be ups and downs in a courtship. If 
there were not a true congeniality between you, it is fortunate 
he made the discovery so early : by and by it would be more 
painful to break off. But, be the future what it may, of this 
you are sure, — the love which filled up the few months with its 
handsome flowers. That leaves a mark, like the traces in the 
rocks of New England, which will never be effaced from the 
character. I know it is very painful for a young maiden to bear 
such disappointments, especially for deep-hearted maidens ; but 
there is a source of strength and comfort in .the religious facul- 
ties within you, which will never refuse supply in time of sorest 
need. Burnt spots in the woods bear the earliest plants and 
most luxuriant and most delicate flowers : so can it be with 
you ; so I trust it will be. It will always give me pleasure to 
see you and hear from you. 

Truly yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

Extract from a Letter. 

Aug. 14, 1859. 

... I am glad you are busy with work of the house and 
dairy ; that you can make good bread (I think it one of the fine 
arts), and also good butter. We lived (or staid) ten weeks at 
St. Croix, and had never a morsel of tolerable bread. There 
are few American women who can make a decent article : many 
of them commit the (female) sin against the Holy Ghost con- 
tinually by transfiguring good meal into bad bread. By famous 
I meant eminent (which is in your power), not renowned (which is 
both undesirable, and out of your control). I should rather be 
eminent for bread and butter than famous for straddling about 
on platforms, and making a noise in public meetings, and getting 
into the newspapers, as many women do. 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 271 

If you can find a school that you suit, and which suits you, 
I would take it ; but, if not, I would make the most of duty 
which lies about me at home. By and by you will have that 
opportunity to be loved which you wish for so much, and per- 
haps in the most attractive of all forms. But I should not 
lightly esteem the purely affectional love of father and mother 
for an only daughter, nor cherish romantic nonsense in my 
head. The river of life is not all foam : indeed, froth is a very 
small part of it ; one, too, which neither waters the meadow, nor 
turns the mill, nor adds much to the beauty of the stream. 
Books will enliven the else dull hours of winter; and both 
strengthen and enrich your mind, if you choose them well. 

There must be a plenty of intelligent people in , of 

your own age, to afford you the company you need. I see not 
why you should not be as happy at home as a young maiden 
need be. The prose of life is quite as indispensable as the 
poetry, and about twenty times greater in quantity. The apple- 
tree is in flower a week, in bearing some twenty weeks, and, be- 
sides, is still and silent long months, but active all the time. . . . 

To the Same. 

Boston, Sept. 10, 1858. 

My dear , — Your lot is harder than I fancied ; for 

I thought your occupation was a fixed fact which would con- 
* tinue, and that Theodore's health was mending, and would 
finally be restored. It is indeed very sad to see a boy thus fade 
away. It is natural the old should die : it is against nature 
that the young pass off so premature. Still I see no reason 
for the foolish melancholy you indulge in, and seem to cherish. 
I know not how much of it is constitutional, and so beyond 
your control. Still I fear much of it is wilful, and within your 
own power : this latter you should check at once, and finally 
make way with and end. It cannot, perhaps, be done by a 
direct act of the will, but indirectly by the performance of daily 
duties. The common wants of life afford the best opportuni- 
ties for happiness and noble character. Housekeeping, school- 
keeping, and the like, are the best things for the majority of 
women : they are as good as grass for cattle. By and by you 
will find a school somewhere. A common school will not be 
an unfit place for you to work in. I would seek the highest 
I was fit for, and put up with the best I could find. 



272 THEODORE PARKER. 

But, for the time, you must, no doubt, stay at home, and do 
what you can for your little brother. I trust you will find com- 
fort and satisfaction ; but it must come out of your own soul. 
Remember me with kind sympathy to your father and mother, 
and Theodore too. 

Affectionately yours, 

Theodore Parker. 

To W. Silsbee. 

Boston, Dec. 4, 1848. — Monday morning. 
My dear William, — I did not know what had befallen 
you till late on Saturday, or I should have come instantly to 
Salem, not to offer you my consolation (I know how poor and 
cold that will appear in your case), but to give you my sympathy. 
How little did I think, when you were last with us, that so soon 
such an affliction would befall you ! But, William, you are a 
man, and can bear hardness ; you are a Christian, and can trust 
God with an absolute faith. It is not an evil thing that has 
befallen Charlotte. Oh, no, William ! it is a good thing : it is 
only a hard thing that has befallen you. But why has that come 
upon you ? Is it a thing infinitely evil to you ? Surely not. 
Now you will have tears. I know what tears ; I know what 
grief and rending of the heart. But the tears are not forever : 
the heart now rent is to be blessed by that very rending. I 
know there is an ecstasy of grief in spiritual men, finely attuned 
by religion, which for a time gives an unnatural calmness and a 
beauty of faith not seen or known before. I never could doubt 
the Infinite Goodness in times of severest trial. But that 
ecstasy will not last : there come sore days of emptiness, when 
we go stooping and feeble, with failing eyes and a hungry 
heart. That is the great sorrow, the long grief. But there is 
comfort in that period. Your wife will not be lost to you. She 
will come back to your affections : the kind words you have 
spoken to her will now return, echoed from the immortal world. 
The wife will become an angel to cheer you, guide you, bless 
you. It is not now the mortal woman, failing and imperfect, it 
is' the madonna out of heaven, who will lean down, and look 
over to help you. In the autumn I have seen a spot in the 
woods burnt over by, some accidental lightning, a roving thun- 
der-bolt falling at random (so it seemed) out of heaven. All was 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 273 

burnt over, — the leaves and the grass ; the trunks of trees looked 
black and ugly : but in the spring tender flowers came up which 
grew nowhere else in the wood, for the sun came warmest on 
that blackened earth ; fragrant grass grew there ; and all summer 
long it was the greenest and the fairest spot in all that wood. 
Yes, it was the last spot which the autumnal frost set foot upon. 
So it is with sorrow-stricken souls. But why do I write as if 
to console ? I only wish to offer you tlie sympathy of one 
kind heart which bleeds at the arrow so sorely piercing you. I 
would come and see you to-day ; but it is impossible. Per- 
haps to-morrow ; at any rate, as soon as possible. 
God bless you, and wipe the tears from your eyes. 

TV 

WlLLOUGHBY LAKE, Vt., Aug. 3, 1854. 

My dear Sanborn, — Your letter apprises . me of the sad 
fact which I always thought must soon or late come to your 
knowledge. I know the nature of that treacherous complaint 
too well. When you were first engaged, I felt about it as you do 
now. There was a flower as brief as beautiful. Young love 
sustained her, gave her new hope, new vigor, new strength, 
and so, doubtless, prolonged the life you loved so fondly. I 
saw how her friends mistook love for life. But there are cases 
in which the soul thus deeply stirred pushes the malady aside, 
and the body lives in triumph. If she recovers, it will be by 
that medicine. 

I have watched your love with great interest, always with 
trembling. Well, it is a dear and beautiful thing once to love 
with all the fervor of youth ; to love one so worthy of a firm 
and manly love, so capable of firm and womanly love. 
Come what may come, so much you are sure of, so much 
joy of the noble sort given and received, so much life made 
into character. This attachment has blessed you both. If 
death must separate the two souls which seem made for 
each other, I know nothing but religion which can sustain 
the survivor : that can. The tenderest sympathy of your 
friends will be freely given you : that will be a little comfort. 
All the excellences which made you love her will appear more 
lovely, more excellent, when they are immortal. Your affec- 
tions will follow her where she precedes. " Where thou diest 



274 THEODORE PARKER. 

will I die," you will say ; meaning, "Where thou livest-wVh T live" 
But the sweetest, best, of consolations, will come from jomt 
realizing sense of the love of God. She takes, the step in her 
progress which we call "death. " You had hoped it would not be 
taken yet, nor separately, but arm in arm, at the' same time, 
you should become immortal together. Alas ! the better half 
of the treasure exhales to heaven, and leaves the earthen vessel 
and the widowed soul. But there is a self-sustaining taith 
which looks even that disaster in the face, and is triumphant. 

Do not doubt you shall have my tenderest sympathies in my 
holiest hoztrs. I know too well the touch of suffering : 'tis part 
of my daily life to try and strengthen others for the cup of 
sorrow which may not pass from us. You do not yet know 
what heroic strength there is in the womanly part of manhood. 
I could wish you might not find it out for many years. But, if 
you must, then let me say, that he who drinks early at this deep 
spring has a life in him which common men know not, — other 
sorrows, other joys, other hopes, other aspirations. Fear not, 
my brave young friend, God will be with you as with her ; and 
eternity. will mend what time so sadly seems to mar. 

Come and see us when you return to Cambridge, soon as you 
can. Let me hear from you. I shall be in Newbury, Vt, in 
about ten or fourteen days. You and your friends will know 
best what to do. But you must not think of forsaking Cam- 
bridge : that will not save her, and will seriously injure her. 
Let me know if a little money is needed, and you know it will 
give me pleasure to furnish it. 

Affectionately yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

Remember me affectionately and tenderly to A ; but I 

think she had better not see the letter. 

Boston, Sept. 5, 1854. 
My dear Sanborn, — So the summer and the mortal life 
went out together. It was pleasant that she passed farther 
on at such a time, — the day of your souls' nuptials. Tears you 
will shed ; tears you must shed : do not try to check them. 
But you have an angel in place of a wife. I never thought 
your wedding would be other than it is. But the marriage 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 275 

between a mortal and an immortal has the tenderest influences 
on the humbler spirit which yet wears the dusty dress of flesh. 
You will look up. 

I know not how to try to console you, but would rather use 
"words of endearment when words of consolation avail not." 
But she has gone forward to that higher wedlock, where develop- 
ment and delight not dreamed of here must needs take place. 
To the intellect, death is nothing, — it is a ferrying over the 
river, where the yonder banks are fairer than the hither : to the 
religious part of our nature it is a triumph, a great circum- 
stance and a joyous ; but to the affections it is the most cruel 
of separations. 

1 " Was iiebt muss zusammen sein," 

and we mourn bitterly as our dear ones are torn away. But in 
the burnt spots of our woodland there come up sweet grass 
and fairest flowers : the tenderest virtues bloom gloriously there. 
I see the effect this is to have on your character. I know, as 
you cannot, how it will stimulate the noblest things in you, 
making you wise before your time, and giving qualities else not 
won in many a year. Doubt not that you are remembered in 
the tenderest communings of my heart, both in its public and 
its private hours. I did not receive your letter till Monday, 
but remembered you not less in the opening services at the 
Music Hall, where I saw only one of your friends, — May. I 
hope you will Come and see us soon as you return this way. 
In the mean time look to me for any kind offices you need, and 
believe me one that early learned to suffer, and 
Most faithfully your friend, 

Theo. Parker. 

To C. A. Bartol. 

Boston, Dec. 1, 1852. 
Dear Bartol, — I thank you heartily for your new volume 
of sermons, which has just come to hand (I received your note 
at the tea-table). Don't dream that I value or love a man less 
because he and I differ on questions of geology or theology, or 
any thing else. I never did, and, I think, never shall. We 
have lots of errors both (and all) of us, no doubt, but some 
little truth to cling by, to live with, and (if need comes) to die 



276 THEODORE PARKER. 

for at the last. I love to meet all sorts of persons, to live with 
all sorts of books, and so get a little widened by intercourse with 
Heathens and Christians, Catholics, Protestants, and Mormons. 
I am amazed at the intolerance of men. They hate one another 
for a difference on a question of time in the geological periods 
of the earth, for a difference in regard to tariff or free trade, to 
Gen. Scott or Gen. Pierce, to Trinity or Unity, Christianity or 
Mosaism. It is all wrong. We may ask each man to be faith- 
ful to himself, not to another man's self. The same fidelity leads 
different men to very different conclusions. Was not Beecher 
honest as Channing, and Blanco White faithful as either of the 
two ? Let us agree to think differently (when we must), and to 
love one another still. ■ 

Truly, as of old, 

T. P. 

Rev. John Pierpont. 

West Roxbury, Oct. 15, 1845. 
Dear Sir, — I called to see you yesterday, but unluckily 
missed you ; and as I shall not, it is probable, have another 
opportunity to take you by the hand, I will now say a word to 
you before you leave Boston. None can regret your departure 
more than I. We have not been much together. You have been 
busy, and so have I : therefore I have not seen you so often as I 
could always have wished. But I have always felt encouraged 
and strengthened by your example, and that long before I had 
any " troubles " with my theological "brethren." If you had 
done as the other ministers, had you been as they are, you 
would not now have been leaving Boston. If you had nattered 
the follies, and winked at the sins, of the rich, you would have 
had, not your reward (that you have now), but their reward : I 
mean, the reward of the ministers you leave behind. But you 
have chosen another part, and have your reward, — a little differ- 
ent from theirs. You must go in triumph ; for you have fought 
a good fight and a great one. For nearly thirty years, you have 
been foremost in all the great reforms of the.day which had the 
welfare of men for their object. You have been fearless and 
free. If others didn't help you, you thought that was a reason 
why you should work the more. When your valor was called 
for, you did not turn round to remember your discretion. None 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 277 

of the great moral enterprises of the day would have stood where 
now they stand, if you had not opened your manly voice in their 
behalf. Where would temperance have been if John Pierpont 
had been silent? where many other good and noble causes? 
It is your zeal for the great cause which Jesus died to serve 
that now has brought you to your present position. Your 
reward is with you. The confidence that you worked faithfully, 
and wrought a great work, will go with you, and bless you to the 
end of your days. Nothing has happened for years so reflect- 
ing disgrace on the Boston clergy as your departure from the 
city under the present circumstances. But what is their dis- 
grace is your glory. Go, then ; and may God be with you ! For 
my sake, for the sake of many, I could wish you were to stay ; 
but it is better you should go. I know you will find work 
enough to be done, and warm hearts to welcome you in doing it. 
You leave behind not a few to bless you for your toils, and to 
pray for your future success and welfare. Your memory will 
live ever in their affections, and their good wishes will follow you 
wherever you go. I beg you to accept my thanks for all that 
you have done, and to believe me ever 

Your friend and brother, 

Theo. Parker. 

To Mrs. Julia Bridges, Newton Corner. 

Boston, April 9, 1858. 

Dear Madam, — I am much obliged to you for the interest 
you take in my spiritual welfare, and obliged to you for the let- 
ter which has just come to hand. I gather from it that you wish 
me to believe the theological opinions which you entertain and 
refer to. I don't find that you desire any thing more. 

I make no doubt the persons who pray for my conversion to 
the common ecclesiastical theology, and those who pray for my 
death, are equally sincere and honest. I don't envy them their 
idea of God when they ask him to come into my study and con- 
found me, or to put a hook into my jaws so that I cannot speak. 
Several persons have come to " labor with me," or have written 
me letters to convert me. They were commonly persons quite 
ignorant of the very things they tried to teach me. They 
claimed a divine illumination which I saw no proofs of in them, 
in their lives or their doctrines. But I soon found it was with 
24 



278 THEODORE PARKER. 

them as it is with you : they did not seek to teach me either 
piety (which is the love of God) or morality (which is the keep- 
ing of the natural laws he has written in the constitution of 
man), but. only to induce me to believe their catechism, and 
join their church. I see no reason for doing either. 

I try to use what talents and opportunities God has given me 
in the best way I can. I don't think it is my fault that I reject 
the absurd doctrines which I find in the creed of these people 
who wish to instruct me on matters of which they are profoundly 
ignorant. 

But the Catholics treated the Protestants in the same way, 
and the Jews and the Heathens thus treated the Christians. I 
find good and religious men amongst all classes of men, — 
Trinitarians, Unitarians, Salvationists and Damnationists, Prot- 
estants, Catholics, Jews, Mahometans, Heathen: There is one 
God for us all ; and I have such perfect love for him, that it long 
since cast out all fear. 

Believe me yours truly, 

Theodore Parker. 

What flocks of letters like the one that follows would 
have fluttered over desolated homes had Theodore Parker 
lived to animate the strong, and console the bereaved, in 
our great war ! And this was written by a dying man. 
Young Edd) was one of John Brown's little band. The 
expedition alluded to was the enterprise at Harper's 
Ferry. 

To Mrs. Eliza F. Eddy. 

Rome, Nov. 19, 1859. 
. . . Your son has fallen a martyr in a cause not less holy, and 
much more philanthropic. He sought to deliver his own coun- 
trymen from domestic misrule and oppression incomparably 
greater than what your fathers fought against. Don't think his 
young life was wasted and thrown away because the expedition 
failed of its immediate object : it will help obtain its ultimate ob- 
ject ; will strike terror into the hearts of all. slaveholders, and so 
weaken the bonds which now hold the slave. Every victory we 
rejoice in has been bought with the blood of men. Such as 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 279 

died had mothers. and sisters, often wives and children, to mourn 
the private cost at which the public benefit was bought. To the 
emancipation of American bondmen you have contributed your 
first-born son : not a drop of his blood is wasted. He himself 
is immortal, and has passed to that higher world we shall all 
enter on before long. He is a gainer by the change ; and 
though his second birth took place in such terrible scenes, and 
he was delivered from the mortal flesh with such dreadful instru- 
ments, not the less does he pass into that glorious life "which 
eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man con- 
ceived." I know what you lose ; but I think of no cause in which 
I should rather one of my friends would lay down his mortal 
life. Surely the blessing of men ready to perish will fall on 
him. Here is your consolation on earth ; and, beyond the 
earth, it will not be long before there is another meeting of souls 
widowed and orphaned here below. . . . 

I know nothing of the details of your son's departure, only 
what " The Standard " briefly told. The last time I saw him, 
he came to consult me about another enterprise, which yet 
looked to the same end, only by means apparently more fearful. 
I could not fail to honor the motives which prompted him then : ' 
not less do I honor him now ; nay, far more. 

Your family have been always in the first rank of the oppo- 
nents of slavery, continually making sacrifices for the slave. It 
is not inappropriate that the crown of martyrdom should be set 
on one of the members of the same family, — a crown of thorns, 
indeed, but also a crown of glory. I have been with you in 
other troubles terrible to bear. I think I know with what reli- 
gious fortitude you will endure this. 

Oh that I were in Boston to give consolation in private, and 
in public to warn the young and wicked nation against the folly 
which now threatens to ruin us ! I would prove that the slaves 
have a natural right to destroy their oppressors, and that it may 
be the duty of freemen to help them. This is only the beginning. 
Nine experiments will seem to fail : the tenth will succeed, and 
pay for all the previous mistakes. The defeats in the early part 
of the American Revolution were essential to the great victory 
at last ; part of the battle in which we were conquerors. My 
dear Mrs. Eddy, accept again my heartiest sympathy : would I 
had more to offer ! Tell your father I shall write him soon as 



280 THEODORE PARKER. 

I have news of the trial and fate of Capt. Brown. God bless 
you all ! 

Believe me ever faithfully yours and affectionately, 

Theodore Parker. 

To Dr. Bowman, Edgington, III. 
Dr. Bowman. Boston, May 22, 1858. 

Dear Sir, — I have heard of several cases like that sad one 
you mention. No man becomes mad in attempts to become 
honest, truthful, humane, merciful, a good father, husband, 
brother, &c. What a direful thing is a. false theology! No won- 
der men grow mad in attempting to appease a God who damns 
nine hundred and ninety-nine while he saves but one ; a God 
who is nine hundred and ninety-nine one-thousandths damna- 
tory, and only one one-thousandth beneficent. 
But better times are coming. 
I send you a few sermons. 

Yours truly, 

Theodore Parker. 

To Dr. Bowman, Edgington, III. 
Dr. Bowman. Boston, Nov. 3, 1856. 

Dear Sir, — I have just returned from a tour to your State, 
and find your pleasant and encouraging letter with four dollars 
in it. I send the books by express to-day. I am exceedingly 
glad when I find that I can help a man out of the mire of the 
popular theology, to the firm footing of natural religion. 

Please let me hear from you again. I have some sixty letters 
to write, and must now be short. 

Yours truly 

Theo. Parker. 

To Dr. Bowman. 

Boston, Jan. 11, 1858: 
My dear Dr. Bowman, — I thank you for your kind and 
noble-spirited letter, which I have just read. 

I know how difficult it is to make headway against the organ- 
ized errors of the popular theology. It is so here, where the 
mass of the people are both more intelligent and more reflect- 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 28 \ 

ing than in your neighborhood. Yet such is the vital affinity 
between truth and the nature of man, that there is a con- 
tinual and obvious progress here. A great change has taken 
place in the theological opinions of the thoughtful men in 
New England within ten years. In twenty more, it will be 
very great. 

Still the stationary party becomes more intense in its conser- 
vatism, and adopts the course of your Presbyterian friend. At 
North Woburn, a little town fourteen miles from Boston, a 
church invited a Mr. Nickerson to be its minister. The coun- 
cil came to ordain the young candidate, and examined him to 
see if he was sound in the faith. He was right in all points but 
one : he did not believe the eternal damnation of babies, dying 
7iewly born. The council refused to ordain him, and adjourned 
for eight weeks, when they will come together again. 

The council never asked the young man if he believed in 
piety and morality, the substance of the religion which he ought 
to teach ; but pressed only the questions of their theology, 
and insisted on the worst of all. In 1787, Dr. Townsend found 
that the Spanish physicians knew nothing of the circulation of 
the blood, and the young candidates for the honor of M.D. 
were not expected to believe it ; but, before admission to prac- 
tice, they took their oath that they believed the immaculate 
conception of the Virgin Mary. It was not so ridiculous as 
the conduct of that council. The method of men of science 
is this : 1. To accumulate the greatest possible number of 
facts ; 2. To induce thence a general law which is common 
to all those facts ; 3. To deduce other doctrines from that 
general law; and, 4. To make practical application thereof 
to such cases as require it : so his doctrine rests on facts, 
not whims. The ministers' method is to assume an hypothesis 
to be true on the testimony of nobody knows who, and thence 
deduce doctrines and apply them. Thus the inspiration of the 
Bible, the Trinity, the Fall, the Devil, Eternal Damnation, &c, 
are not supported by the smallest particle of evidence in the 
world : there is no fact of nature or of human history to sup- 
port them. Doctors can do a deal of service in the manner 
you refer to, and sow seeds by the wayside which the fowls of 
the air will not devour. 

I agree with all you say about slavery : only my compassion 
24* 



282 . THEODORE PARKER. 

falls more on the negro, who is the unwilling victim, than on his 
masters, who might set him free. 

Believe me heartily yours, 

Theodore Parker. 

To Thomas G. Barnard, Esq., Norway, Me. 

Boston, March 30, 1853. 

Dear Sir, — I thank you for your interesting and welcome 
letter, which I have just read. It gives me great pleasure to 
know of such men as yourself, bred by deeply-religious 
parents in the old forms of religion, yet coming out of bigotry 
into freedom with a continual increase of piety, and faith in 
God. I know some men who cast off the old forms of the- 
ology and of church service for the sake of getting rid of the 
restraints of religion. I always love to find one who grows in 
morality as he advances also in intellectual freedom. 

I know many persons whose history is the same as yours. 
The Methodist Church does a great deal of good. The Method- 
ist minister, poor, badly educated, often quite ignorant, goes 
amongst men more ignorant than he, and rouses up the religious 
spirit in their souls, and quickens them with new life. How 
many thousands of men there are who owe their earthly salva- 
tion to the labors of some modest minister of that persuasion ! 
I have great respect for them. But, alas ! they bind men in 
fetters ; they make men fear ; they drive by terror, while they 
ought to draw by love ; they make too much of a separation 
between life and religion. Their idea of God is dark and sad ; 
so is their notion of the next life. But when one comes to the 
conviction that God is infinite, — I mean perfectly powerful, per- 
fectly wise, just, loving, and faithful to himself, — then the great 
difficulty is over. You do not fear God : you love him. You 
will not seek to shun his laws, but to keep them ; and, if you 
fall away sometimes through the strength of temptation and 
the weakness of your character, you feel mortified, ashamed, 
and penitent, and come back full of vigor and resolution anew, 
and go on your way rejoicing. 

I am sorry I did not know you while you were here in Bos- 
ton, and hope you will continue to grow in all religious and 
manly excellence. 

Truly yours, 

Theo. Parker. 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 283 



To Robert White, Jun., New York. 

Boston, March 15, 1853. 

My dear good Friend, — I should have written you long 
ago ; but, when I came home from New York, I had another of 
the comforts of Job, which seated itself on my right hand, so 
that I could not write with it. Some indispensable letters I 
wrote with the left. You would laugh to see them, but give up 
the attempt to read. Now that is gone, and all its companions, 
I hope. I was never better than now. 

Your old and intimate relative has taken that step in his life 
which we commonly call death. I doubt not it was a pleasant 
step for him to take ; though painful always it must be for us, 
the living, to separate from such as go to a higher life. But there 
are so many beautiful associations which cling to those we love, 
and come out with all the more beauty when they cease to be 
mortal, that the departure of a friend is always attended with 
an exaltation of our spirits, if we have faith in the infinite good- 
ness of the great Father. 

There are some men whom I pity exceedingly : — 

1. Such as have no belief in the souVs eternal life, and look 
on death as an ultimate fact. 

2. Such as only fear a God, but do not know the infinite 
Father (and infinite Mother) of all souls, and so have nothing 
on which they can perfectly rely. 

I meet both classes of men, the latter oftenest ; and I pity 
them most exceedingly. To one the grave is only a deep, dark 
hole in the ground : to the other it is a hole which leads down 
to hell. 

The popular religion makes death a most formidable enemy, 
a thing to be shuddered at. 

I am amazed at the feebleness of men's faith in God. 
Death is one step in our progress. Birth was a. step once ; 
but birth was a death to one form of being, and death is a 
birth into another form of being. To die in infancy, youth, or 
manhood, does not seem after the true course of nature ; but to 
die in old age, — 

" Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's duties done," — 
that is no misfortune, but a blessing also. My father, when an 



284 THEODORE PARKER. 

old man (seventy and seven years old), laid down his weary 
mortal bones, and was glad to die. We wept over his toil-worn 
hands and venerable head, which we had kissed so many a 
thousand times ; but we were glad that the dear old man 
rested from his labors, and went home to his God and our God, 
— the earthly father to the infinite Father and Mother. So 
shall we all one day be glad to go, and knock with our feeble 
hand at our Mother's door. " Undo the gate, and let me in," 
shall we all say, as we go, willing and welcome, to meet her. 

I hope you and yours are all well. We send our kindest 
salutations to you all. My wife and Miss Stevenson admired 
your daguerrotype, and thought it quite faithful. 
Sincerely yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

To J. T. Sargent. 

Wednesday, Dec. 18, 1844. 

Dear Brother, — Thanks for your letter, which I am now 
hot with reading. I will lecture, as you say, sell tickets, and do 
any thing, for so good a cause. I wish to lecture the time you 
mention ; for I shall preach the Thursday Lecture that day, and 
so shall save time. Thank you, thank you, for the letter ! But 
you must not leave "those few sheep in the wilderness." With 
whom can you leave them ? No, no ! Have no superstition 
about injuring "the cause," or hurting the feeling of the " Fra- 
ternity of Churches." Take a hall, and preach to such as come. 
Let the " brethren " fill their chapel as they may and can. Don't 
budge an inch. I look on this holding as all the free ground 
that is taken in the city : I would fight for it to the last. I 
don't know what else you may have in view ; but I think you can 
do nothing better, nothing half so good, as to continue and 
preach to these men you have attached to you. They look to 
you for help in time of trouble. " The hireling fleeth when he 
seeth the wolf coming," &c. ; "but the good shepherd giveth his 
life for his sheep" 

Putnam said, yesterday, he did not see the necessity of your 
resigning. I do, and the necessity of your continuing with 
your old friends. But what do I say ? I have no authority to 
advise any one, least of all one who knows his duty himself. I 
only fear that you have a superstition about injuring the cause; 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 285 

while I think you will injure it by deserting the little o?ies, and 
so causing them to offend. 

Believe me most heartily yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

A second letter to the same friend, and in the same 
strain, will not seem too much in illustration of that senti- 
ment, half gratitude and half compassion, which is rare 
except with the best minds : — 

To j. T. Sargent. 

West Roxbury, Jan. 30, 1845. 
My dear Friend and Brother, — I should be very rec- 
reant to my own inward promptings if I did not tell you how 
my heart feels moved towards you of late, and how much I feel 
grieved at your troubles. For my own I never cared much : 
they pass by me as the wind. I open a book ; I walk in the 
fields : t^hey fall from me as I shake the loose snow from my 
hat, and' trouble me no more. My dreams are sweet as a boy's, 
so calm and untroubled ! But it gives me great grief and pain 
that I have unwittingly brought you into trouble. What can I 
do to help you ? I know not. If I were to write in your de- 
fence, you would say, as Brother Young at Ellis's ordination, 
" A T on tali auxilio" &c. ; and I should do you more harm than 
good. It would be regarded as if the Devil should come out 
and defend Job from those excellent "friends " who fastened 
on him in his misfortunes. I can give you my sympathies : 
you have those rich and abundant. I can tell you how much I 
admire your spirit, how much I applaud your courage (the 
courage of gentleness), your gentleness too (the gentleness of 
strength). I have not had time to thank you for your noble and 
manly sermons. They are the true expressions of a noble 
spirit. They are rich in magnanimity. If any thing had been 
wanting to place the Fraternity in their true light, it was the 
publication of the last sermon you preached in the chapel. I 
feel for you ; but I pity the Fraternity. I hope I feel contempt 
for none. 

" I pity such as wicked are; 
I pity and I mourn : 

But the great God hath fashioned them ; 
And, oh ! I dare not scorn." 



286 THEODORE PARKER. 

Your last sermon places you in a fine light before the public. 
It has the rhetoric of facts and the eloquence of truth. I know 
not what are your plans for the future. I feel almost glad that 
you did not take my advice, and open a new chapel for the poor, 
and yet still almost sorry you did not. Do you think the Fra- 
ternity will adhere to their ground? — adhere to it, and not expel 
me ? That is quite inconsistent. But it was good-natured and 
manly to appoint the committee they did to confer with me. 
Though nothing but good feeling will come of it, it is worth 
while to have that among brethren. Tell me if you have my 
" Treatise on De Wette : " if not, it will give me great pleasure 
to send you a copy. 

Believe me most truly your Christian brother, 

Theo. Parker. 

P. S. — Give all cheering regards to Mrs. Sargent. 

To S. J. May. 

Oct. 24, 1853. 

... I hope you read " The Register " of last week and the 
account of the Annual Convention. What subjects for dis- 
cussion ! — Have we a litany amongst us ? Shall we have one ? 
That is, when the Rev. Mr. Peabody reads, " The Lord delight- 

eth not in the strength of the horse," whether 

and shall respond, " He taketh no pleasure in the 

legs of a man ; " or whether Peabody shall drone away alone to 
the end of the chapter. 

Again : On what terms shall persons be admitted to the 
communion? i.e., "on what terms" shall an old woman be 
allowed once a month, in a meeting-house, on Sunday, to eat a 
crumb of baker's bread, and drink a sip of grocer's wine, which 
the deacon has bought at a shop the day before ? 

What if nobody at all is allowed to come to the communion ? 
will not Christendom be in just as good case at the year's 
end? What if everybody eats the soda-biscuit ( — 1 — thinks 
that i6 the "unleavened bread "), and drinks the wine: who is 
the worse for that ? Dear me, what a world it is ! — drunken- 
ness all round us ; covetousness eating the heart out of society ; 
the Fugitive-slave Bill making it incumbent on a man to send 
back his own mother to bondage ; ministers, with kidnappers 
members of their churches, discussing a litany and the terms 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 287 

of admission to the Lord's Supper ! Bless me ! if the Naza- 
rene were there at the Worcester Convention, I think he would 
have made a scourge of large cords, and let loose upon the 
assembly, till there was such a stampede among the brethren as 
one does not often see among the reverend clergy. Well, the 
age is leaving these old boys to their litanies, and their commu- 
nions, and their miracles. What politician, what philanthropist, 
what merchant (of any head at all), what man of science, cares a 
pin for all this humbug ? Religion rises early every morning, 
and works all day. 

Good-by ! 

Theo. Parker. 

Please write to me as "Mr.," not " Rev.," &c. 

Following this letter, as if it were a postscript, is a note 
telling Mr. May of two very noble and beautiful actions 
done by a gentleman between whom and Mr. Parker no 
love was lost in the fierce times of political strife. The 
note should be printed but for the necessary mention of 
private affairs. It is alluded to now as one of the many 
instances of Mr. Parker's readiness to acknowledge the 
personal goodness of men whose public course he felt 
compelled to assail. That he was always successful in 
rendering this species of charity is not claimed ; that he 
always tried to be cannot be doubted by any who have 
read his private papers. 

To S. J. May. 

Boston, June 17, 1851. 
Dear Friend, — I will try and write so plain that you can 
read all the words. I write on the anniversary of the battle of 
Bunker Hill, because I know you were one of the chief contrib- 
utors to the Monument Fund, and will be pleased to be associ- 
ated with any battle, — you son of a colonel, you ! So much for 
the time of writing : now for the matter in hand. I have just 
had a letter from Dr. Otto Fock, professor of philosophy at 
Kiel in Denmark, who wants to come to America. He is 
about forty years old, learned and able, but, alas ! a republican. 



288 . THEODORE PARKER. 

He cannot live in Germany : the police look after him too sharp. 
Can we do any thing for him here ? He is learned and indus- 
trious ; will work. Can we find a place worthy of him ? He 
has written a valuable book, — history of " Socinianismus." 
Perhaps he might write an " excellent tra-a-a-ct " for Father 
Briggs, or prove that the apostle Thomas was a Unitarian, or, 
if not Thomas, then at least Jude, or Judas. Besides Dr. 
Fock, another German doctor of philosophy has written for the 
same purpose, — to find a home in America. He is a philologian, 
(Dr. Lobeck from Konigsberg), a learned man, librarian of the 
university at that place. He has written some books, and has 
been an editor of a Volksbote (" People's Messenger "), and is a 
democrat. Do tell me whether we can do any thing for these 
noble-hearted men. 

I hope you will not let the committee appointed by the 
ministerial conference go to sleep. We must have the meeting, 
and do our prettiest to have justice done at it. Perhaps it 
would be well for you to stir up Brother Hall to greater 
diligence in this matter ; for I fear that evil counsels may yet 
prevail. With best regards all round, believe me 
Yours heartily, . 

Theo. Parker. 

To S. J. May. 

Day after Second Preaching Day in March, 
Second Monday in Lent, A.S., 1854. 

Dear, beloved, and most reverend Father, — I re- 
joice that thou art in so good a work as confuting the heretics ( 
who dare lift up their voices against the most ancient, most 
orthodox, and infallible church of the Unitarians. It will be 
easy to show that the author of the fourth Gospel was a" Unita- 
rian, you a member of the Boston Association of Congregational 
Ministers. This is the way, reverend father : Strike out all 
after 'Ev apxy, and insert our " excellent tracts," — the apostle 
John a Unitarian. By a similar process, it may be shown that 
the apostle Paul was also a Unitarian ; nay, likewise, Peter ; 
that the author of the Apocalypse was a non-resistant. It is 
true, in the text he makes the " Lamb " take charge of an army 
of two hundred million horse, and destroy one-third part of the 
human race, and then tread the " wine-press of the wrath of 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 289 

God," and slaughter men till he make a blood-puddle on the 
earth two hundred miles wide and three feet deep ; and then 
there is quite a portion of " the rest of mankind " who are 
pitched down into the lake of fire, whither Death and Hell — Qava- 
rog and 'Adrjc — had preceded them. But all this, O father ! is a 
delusion of 2a#av, who will deceive the very elect if they do not 
keep a top-eye open and a bright look-out. The Katvij Aia&7)n7) 
contains nothing but a revelation of the most mild and gentle 
characteristics of " God and the Lamb : " all else is a delusion 
of Satan, whom thou wilt put to rout with the army of the 
aliens. 

I send thee, O father ! a copy of a little discourse preached 
by thy son touching the Nebraska matters ; and will soon send 
thee another adhuc sub prelo sztdans, more befitting thy vene- 
rable years ; to wit, " A Sermon of Old Age." 
Vale, pater dilectissime, 

Theodore. 

The correspondent who drew forth the next long letter 
on a most important subject much discussed at present, 
and likely to be discussed more still, was one of those 
estimable men whose spirit always teaches truth, whatever 
may be thought of their opinions. The contents of the 
epistle are not, perhaps, striking for originality ; but we 
learn to admire commonplace, when a sorely-vexed man 
patiently employs them as the only weapons at his com- 
mand. They illustrate, at least, the excellent quality of 
the writer's heart, which will not be wearied by any drain 
made on the hours. 

To Robert White, Jun. 

, Boston, Dec. 31, 1849. 
My dear Friend, — Soon as I received your last letter, I 
set myself seriously to work to write an answer in detail. But 
continued interruption for the sake of other duties renders it 
impossible that I should be able to do this : therefore I will limit 
myself to considerations of a more general character, which 
require less time and space, and leave the other matter to be 
talked over some time when we may meet, as I trust we shall ; 
2 5 



290 THEODORE PARKER. 

for a little conversation will do more than a good deal of 

writing. 

I shall take it for granted, that in making man male and 
female, providing them with instinctive desires for union, and 
providing no other way for the perpetuation of the race except 
by such union, God established marriage in the very nature 
of man's body. I think the spirit of one sex is as incomplete 
without the other as the body, and that there is as much a 
spiritual desire for the spirit of the other sex in men and 
women as a bodily desire for the bodies of the opposite sex, 
only in most persons it is not so strong. On these two points 
I think we do not differ. 

Now the question comes, Did Jesus Christ intend to forbid 
marriage to his followers ? or, allowing it, did he think celibacy 
the better state ? 

Before answering that question, it is necessary to look a little 
at the state of opinion in the world about him on this matter. 

I. The Jews considered marriage necessary and sacred. Celi- 
bacy in a man was thought impious, in a woman disgraceful (see 
Isa. iv. 1) ; but afterwards marriage got into worse repute 
among the Jews, and moralists found it necessary to commend 
marriage (see, e.g., Ecclus. xxxvi. 24-26 ; xxvi. 1-3, 13-16, 
20-21 ■; xl. 23, and other passages). At length there grew up a 
sect which abandoned marriage, — the Essenes : they had some 
excellent ideas, it seems, and had a good deal of influence on 
the early Christians in many matters. 

II. Amongst the heathens, marriage was generally held in 
esteem ; or, at any rate, celibacy was not much allowed or prac- 
tised. Still it was sometimes practised as a religious duty by 
a caste of men or women : the vestal virgins are examples. 

In the offering of sacrifices, it seems early to be thought 
that what was most valuable to men, or most dear, was also the 
most acceptable offering to God. Hence the fruits of pastoral 
life (oxen, &c.) or of agricultural life (wheat, fruit, &c.), 
and not the spontaneous productions of the earjh, were the 
sacrifice. As the organs of generation were of value in keep- 
ing the race in existence, and in satisfying the instinct of man, 
in a fit of religious excitement men mutilated themselves in 
the name of God (the priests of Cybele are examples of this), 
and others made a vow of temporary or continual chastity. 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 291 

III. The Hebrews never had a high idea of woman. Man 
is created for his own sake, woman to be a help-meet for him 
(Gen. ii. 18-24). ^ an * s of God; woman only of man, and for 
man. This, also, is Paul's notion (1 Cor. xi. 7, &c). The com- 
mon notion of woman in the Old Testament is, that she is a 
wanton, a drudge, or a shrew. She lost us paradise ; her heart 
is "snares and nets." "Any wickedness but that of woman" 
was a proverb. Among the heathens there was great wanton- 
ness : there was among the Jews, to judge from complaints in 
the Old Testament, and the numerous words the Hebrew lan- 
guage has for the crime of sensuality. 

IV. These things being so, it is not at all surprising that 
some of the Christians thought it best to cut off that passion 
altogether, which they found it difficult to regulate ; not surpris- 
ing that they thought they ought to sacrifice their powers of 
generation, as the vestals or priests of Cybele had done. 
Especially would this be so among the rigid Christians ; and 
the persecutions tended to make them all rigid. Still more, if 
men came from the Essenes to Christianity, would they bring 
their own notions of marriage with them. 

This being the case, I am not at all surprised to find St. 
Paul speak of marriage as he does. But yet further : the early 
Christians thought the world was soon to end, — in their life- 
time : so marriage was not needful to perpetuate the race. So 
Paul suffers it for such as cannot do without it ; but to him it 
was a mere physical necessity, not at all a spiritual affection, 
which led to wedlock. I am not surprised to see such language 
attributed to Jesus as occurs in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 
But I do not find reason to believe that Jesus was at all desir- 
ous of disturbing the natural order of things Ln relation to this 
affair. Still I think such opinions were attributed to him 
before the fourth Gospel was written ; for in that Christ is said 
to work his first miracle at a marriage. It seems to me the au- 
thor meant to show that Christ sanctioned marriage and the 
use of wine, of which Christ makes three or four barrels for the 
occasion. Now, if Christ intended to overthrow and supersede 
the union of the sexes, I think he would not have left it at all 
ambiguous, but would have said so with great plainness, speak- 
ing as distinctly as he did of the sabbath and of the Jewish insti- 
tutions, — fasts and the like. Many of the interpretations of Mr. 



292 THEODORE PARKER. 

Dunlary seem to me mistaken ; e.g., his account of " the abomi- 
nation of desolation " seems to me wholly a mistake : yet in 
other passages he shows a great degree of ingenuity as well as 
fairness, and I feel much respect for the man. But you see 
how much time it would take for me to go over the whole mat- 
ter, text for text : it would require me to write a great book, 
which I have not time or health to undertake. I hope you will 
forgive me for my long delay and neglect : I know you would 
if you knew the amount of matter which I must attend to. 
Allow me to wish you a happy New Year. 

And believe me your friend, 

Theodore Parker. 

To J. B. Parker. 

West Roxbury, Aug. 29, 1846. 
My dear John, — I told you I despised the study of 
heraldry : I have yet wasted some little time over Guillim and 
other writers on that theme. I am quite up to giving any in- 
formation about the noble family of Kettles. The motto is, 

"ne call the pot black." 

It is a most ancient family. It is related to the Pots, the Skil- 
lets, the, Patty-Pans, the Porringers, and divers other great and 
noble families in all civilized countries. Lord Copper-Kettle, 
Baron Stew-Pan, and his Grace the Duke of Brass-Kettle, are 
all branches of this family :' so is that famous champion, Sir 
Kettle-Drum j and he is soon to be elevated to the peerage. The 
family of Boilers is of the same descent, but were for a long 
time in obscurity, devoted mainly to agriculture and domestic 
economy. But lately some of the family have entered the 
marine service, and have done great honor to their family ; 
while others have become famous on land. Lord Steamboat- 
Boiler and Sir Fiz away -Locomotive are of this latter class. It 
is thought this branch of the family will surpass all others. 
Indeed, some of them have been so elated by success, that 
they have actually burst j and this, by the way, is the great 
danger to which this family is subject. You will find all about 
the stocky &c, in Burke's " Peerage " or " Commoners," &c. 
What you say of Salem is pretty true, but not wholly. There 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 293 

are, as I know very well, some noble exceptions to what you 
state as the general rule. 

If you want any books from time to time, let me know, and 
I think I can procure them for you. But Emmeline tells me 
you sit up late. Now, that is quite — nay, almost — as bad as 
lying late. Be sure you will repent it. If your eyes are sore, 
go to bed ; go to sleep. You must mind me. There is no 
excuse for violating a law of Nature. The laws God wrote on 
the body are quite as binding as the ten commands which 
Moses wrote on stone. Keep the commandments. 
And believe me truly yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

To Horace Coolidge, Boston. 

West Newton, Aug. 31, 1852. 

My young Friend, — As you are about commencing the 
study of your profession, I wish to give you a word of advice. 
The study and practice of the law has this advantage, — that it 
keeps the intellectual faculties in a great activity; at least, some 
of them. And I notice, in general, that lawyers are more 
eminently intellectual than any other class of men, unless it be 
men of science and authors by profession. But the law has 
these disadvantages : 1. That it exercises and develops the 
intellectual to the detriment of the other and higher faculties ; 
and, 2. That it does not allow a very complete and generous 
development of the intellect itself, especially of the higher de- 
partments thereof, — say the reason and imagination, — but 
only of the understanding. Most of the lawyers that I have 
known are examples of this defective and vicious develop- 
ment. Indeed, most of the lawyers that I know make a mere 
money-getting trade of their profession, and no science at all : 
so that with them law is not a liberal pursuit, only a head-craft ; 
and they are only mechanics at law, with little more elevation, 
and sometimes less, than is law to a handicraft. 

I take it you wish to be, first, a complete man, with all your 
faculties harmoniously developed ; and next a complete lawyer, 
master of your calling, and eminent in it, enjoying, accord- 
ingly, the emoluments and honors thereof. So I hope you will 
take pains to avoid the common evils of the profession, and 
25* 



294 THEODORE PARKER. 

get a wide intellectual expansion. To help in this matter, 
there are several things which may be recommended : — 

I. One is the study of metaphysics : that forces you to look 
at first principles, and study the laws of Nature and the con- 
stitution of the universe, and helps to correct the one-sidedness 
and partialism of the ordinary lawyer. But there seems to be 
a sort of repugnance between law and metaphysics. I never 
knew a lawyer that cared much for that pursuit ; and, of all the 
eminent metaphysicians, I remember no one that was a lawyer. 
Besides, to prosecute this study with success, or even pleasure, 
there must be a certain natural inclination that way. If you 
have it, I hope you will continue your interest in metaphysical 
studies all your life. 

II. Next the study of natural science : this has a fine effect 
in widening the reach of thought and the range of observation, 
and so helps the intellectual development of man. Few law- 
yers attend to this at all. The same one-sidedness which keeps 
them from the study of the per ?jia?ient-abs tract of metaphysics 
deters them from the per7na?ient-co7icrete of natural science. 
So they look on the arbitrary statutes of men, which are only a 
temporary accident of development, as if they were absolute 
and fixed, as much as the permanent-abstract or the permanent- 
concrete mentioned above. A statute is a temporary rule of 
conduct devised to suit the passing emergency. The metaphy- 
sician and the naturalist deal with natural laws, which are the 
constant modes of operation of the forces of the universe; the 
lawyers deal with those statutes which are the variables of man; 
while the philosopher deals with those laws which are the con- 
stants of God. But the misfortune of the lawyer is, that he 
looks on his human variables as if they were as permanent and 
as absolutely imperative as the divine constants, the laws of 
matter or of mind. Hence he loses his natural conscience, and 
gets a fictitious and artificial conscience ; loses the conscience 
of nature, and gets the conscience of Doctors' 1 Cojnmons, or of 
the Old Bailey, or of the Supreme Court. The study of science 
helps correct this ; yet I fear few lawyers care much for sci- 
ence. Judge Parsons was a man of large scientific attain- 
ments : John Pickering, also, — a quite uncommon man in many 
respects, — was quite familiar with the highest results of science. 
Both of these men were better lawyers, as well as more com- 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 295 

plete men, for this scientific development. I know a young 
lawyer who had to manage a case of damages for injury done 
to cows by water artificially contaminated, who, in preparing 
for the case, set himself to study the physiology of the cow, and 
so understand the effects of poison upon her. That was the 
true way for a scientific lawyer to go to work : the rule applies 
everywhere. But I believe lawyers, in general, have a profes- 
sional dislike for physics as well as metaphysics. I do not 
know whether you have any decided natural fondness for sci- 
ence ; and, if you have not, I should not look in this quarter for 
the corrective to the one-sidedness of legal studies. 

III. Here is a third thing ; viz., the study of human history : 
I mean (1) the study of political national history, — the develop- 
ment of Rome, France, England, &c. ; and (2) universal-human 
history, — the development of mankind. Both of these will 
be of great advantage to you, first as a man, and next as a law- 
yer. Historical knowledge is of immense importance : its prac- 
tical application to the purpose of the lawyer is obvious enough. 
Hence lawyers, though ignorant of physics and metaphysics, are 
better versed in history than any other class of educated men 
(excepting professors of that department whose knowledge 
is a technical affair). But here the vicious development of the 
lawyer appears again : he attends only to the transient things 
of history, and not the permanent laws of development ; to the 
variables of enact?nent, not to the constants of nature. The 
study of the gradual evolution of any particular nation, — say 
the Romans or the Anglo-Saxons, — with its domestic, social, 
national institutions, will be of great advantage to you. It is 
not of much importance to know whether Gen. Fairfax charged 
up hill or down hill, wore a blue feather or a red one, or whether 
his military breeches were of plush or fustian ; but it is of 
great importance to know what ideas were in his head or in the 
heads of his opponents and of his soldiers, and what organiza- 
tion those ideas got in the world. 

I hope you will study carefully the political history of some 
of the leading nations, especially of the Roman and Anglo- 
Saxon : it will be of great advantage to you. But you will be 
profited by studying also the gradual evolution of mankind 
from savagedom to its present development. I hope you will 
study the history of the legal institutions (and enactments) of 



296 THEODORE PARKER. 

various countries as well as of your own. It is unfortunate 
that there is no good account of the development of English 
law. There are much better accounts of the history of the 
Roman, the German, and the French law, in Latin, in German, 
or in French. I hope in the course of your life you may become 
acquainted with all these three. Your acquaintance with German 
will help you in this matter ; for the best book on the historical 
development of law in England has been written, not in English, 
but in German. But, in the course of your preparatory studies, 
I suppose you will not take a very wide range : that will come 
later, when your wings are grown. I cannot fail to think that 
a careful study of history will be of great help to you. 

IV. The study of belles-lettres I suppose I need not speak 
of : the general stream of custom will carry you thither. But I 
would not waste my time on mean authors : I would study the 
masters of poetry before I played with their apprentices, and 
still more before I played with lackeys of the apprentices. You 
see uneducated people waste a whole evening in silly talk about 
silly men or women. It is still worse for an " educated man " 
to waste his time on silly books : they are always bad company. 
The books of great men will be good company, — the great 
poets, English, French, German, Italian, Greek, and Latin ; 
dramatists, moralists, essayists, &c. 

The\ study and practice of the law tend to weaken the moral 
sense and to quicken the intellectual powers. I trust that your 
respect for the integrity of your own character, and your rever- 
ence for the Infinite God, will keep you from the moral ruin of 
which the courts present so many examples. You need not 
fear that you shall surfer as a lawyer for what you gain as a 
man. A reputation for strict veracity, integrity, and honesty, 
will be most eminently valuable to you as a lawyer: it will 
give you the best kind of business of the best men. I am glad 
you are to study with Mr. Charles G. Loring ; for I take it his 
moral character is loftier than that of any lawyer of his age in 
Boston : his personal influence will be good, and greatly good. 
I need not say to you that I think there is no real nobleness of 
manly character without manly religion, the love of God, and 
the love of man. I wish you great joy and great manhood in 
the profession you have chosen, and am 
Truly your friend, 

Theo. Parker. 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 297 

The following familiar letters illustrate the pleasantry 
of his mind, and his unbounded affectionateness of dis- 
position. As the overflow of his friendliness, they are 
printed just as they were written. 

To Miss . 

Boston, June 6, 1851. 

Dear old Ladye, — Now she shall have a letter, though 
she has not yet written me one. I felt grim as a bear all the 
time I was at Northampton. I don't know why, unless it was 
the beginning of a certain biliousness, which oranges and rhu- 
barb are to drive away. At any rate, I felt as gloomy as a 
snake in October. I hope I shall behave better next time. 

Well, the world goes on here after the old sort. Wednesday, 
Mrs. R. came and passed the day with dear old Mites o J Teants 
and Bits d 1 Blossoms too. We had a nice time of it. Teantie 
had her rides in " express-trains," on " Bessie," and the " colo- 
nel," and all that; her dels, &c. Nay, I tried to find her a Lab- 
bit in the toy-shops, but got a Cochon instead, which the Mites 
pronounced to be a ftigh, and was delighted with Mr. Cochon. 
Blossoms sprawled out his legs, — and such legs ! — and purred 
and mooed ; and, when any thing displeased him, he said, 
"Waugh" with a deep grunting tone. The children quite 
eclipsed their mother ; but we all had a nice time. 

There is to be a Thompson Festival on the 16th of June 
(he goes off to England the 17th), and you ought to be there. T. 
will speak an hour by " Shrewsbury clock." We expect a great 
gathering of the Simon Pures. (Here I ought to stop to shoot 
at my bill with one of Dr. Wesselhoeft's bullets.) There ! the 
association of ideas carries me off to the ship, and J. P. Blanch- 
ard, and the sea-voyage he will enjoy with Thompson. Well, 
let that go. 

I have finished the Life of Wordsworth, and got a straw hat 
— manilla — just like the old one raised from the dead; and that 
is all I have done this week. Wordsworth was a dear old 
granny, with a most hearty love of mankind, especially of the 
least attractive portions of it, —r beggars and fools, and Bishop 
Doane, who he thinks was a great and good man. Words- 
worth heard him preach once at London ; saw him at his 



298 THEODORE PARKER. 

(Wordsworth's) house, and liked him much. If Wordsworth 
had lived a little in London, and felt the presence of some one 
who was manly and differed from him, it would have done 
him service. He runs in a narrow round of objects, ideas, 
and sentiments ; is humane (and means to be so in his penal 
sonnets), devout, self-denying, and genial: but he lived too 
much in solitude, was too much with his worshippers, and 
limited himself in his reading. He loved his neighbors and 
their little bits o' blossoms. His domestics he treated in the 
most Christian way, — like his own sisters. I love the man the 
more after reading all the twaddle of his letters and talk. He 
was like Dr. Channing and William Silsbee united. But he 
was the most self-conscious poet I remember to have read or 
read of : he knows the anatomy of his own mind as if he took 
himself to pieces. There was more of will in his poetry than 
you commonly find. Things were so because William Words- 
worth would have them so. They grew out of his will more 
than out of his whole nature. But I love the dear old poetical 
Betty more after reading his' Life than before. You will rejoice 
in the book, which will wait for you when you return. 

Susan has gone home ; sister sick ; mother ailing. The cat 
mews at your door, and will not be comforted. He sends you 
his best fturr-r-r, to which I have just room enough for mine. 
Lots of love to all the Hunts and Miss A., and quantities of 
kisses to the Mites o' Willy. "Bits" can't say fiapaj but 
" Mites " counts one, two, fwee, four. 

West Newton, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 1852. 
POOR OLD Lad ye, — Presently after reading the Life and Let- 
ters of Byron and Goethe, I read also that of Admiral Robert 
Blake. You know he was first a Puritan soldier, and held out 
the town of Lyme against Prince Rupert, and subsequently the 
city of Taunton (if city it were), both in a most extraordinary 
and successful manner ; next he was admiral, and such an 
admiral ! Cromwell on the land was the equal of Blake on the 
sea. He fought the Dutch, and swept the famous and formida- 
ble Van Tromp out of the Channel. He went off to the Medi- 
terranean, and levied contributions on the cities of Italy, Genoa, 
Leghorn, Rome, Naples, and on Tunis. He humbled the Span- 
iards in the Old World and the New. A man of not many words ; 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 299 

a compact, resolute man, of the most formidable action. Well, 
Goethe's and Byron's lives seem little, mean, and trifling, after 
such a man, and more wicked ; for, in all Blake's dreadful 
slaughters, there was conscience and humanity at the bottom of 
the man. I should rather be Blake sweeping Tromp out of the 
Channel for the nation's sake, and (as he thought) for justice' 
sake, than Byron sending for the police to turn the Venetian 
woman out of his house, or Goethe breaking the heart (so 
cruelly and wantonly) of pure, good Frederika von Sesenheim. 
It seems to me less to answer for before man and God. Then the 
lives of these literary men seem to me intensely frivolous, and 
scarred all over with egotism and selfishness. Goethe wastes 
how much time in nonsensical study of form, and in vain 
dramas, Grosskophtas, &c. ! I felt often a great disgust at the. 
sight of so much genie directed to such trifles as he spent 
much of his time upon. After all, Goethe was less of a man 
than Voltaire. Both wrought wholly by the pen, — or chiefly. 
Voltaire influenced his own age vastly more than Goethe, and 
will reach much farther into the future. His influence was better 
in kind, as well as greater. As a philosopher, Voltaire was more, 
more as a poet, and, including prose as well as rhythmic works, 
more as a man. I suppose it would be thought treason to say 
this ; but it is true. 

Yesterday afternoon I went over to West Roxbury to see the 
old familiar places, not the people. So I sat down on the seat 
under the willow, and went to my old haunts in the woods and 
elsewhere, and got my favorite flowers in the favorite spots. But 
it was very sad, very sad, — this body of a place after you have 
been born out of it. It is a little curious that such a man should 
live in our old house, and drink his wine in my old study, and 
grow his hunkerism. I should feel uncomfortable to do such 
things in a place where such different ones had been done. 
Poor old ladye ! When will she come home ? House empty, 
papered, and varnished, but, alas ! not yet swept. 

Boo! 

"Monday Night, Feb. 2, 1852. 
Dear poor old Ladye, — This is the last letter I have the 
time to write before I get home. To-day I went with Sam Jo 
May — the best man in this world ; and, if there are any better 



300 THEODORE PARKER. 

in the next, I shall be all the more glad when I get there — to 
see the Onondaga Indians. Queer folks, these red men ! I did 
not find a squaw fit to bring home, nor a pappoose that I liked. 
Saw some real Pagan Indians ; went into their council-house, 
church, and several houses. Saw squaws and sawnups and 
iktashes, and the like ; got them to read some Indian books to 
me to get the pronunciation. Saw the missionary, — a real 
nice man for the place, with a real nice wife. Sam Jo is at work 
on the Indians, for the Indians, and with the Indians. He has 
done a deal for them since he has been here, and will do much 
more. 

Ah, me ! I wish I was at home ; but home shall I be before 
long. I think of all the good folks, — when you lie down, when 
you rise, up, when eat dinner, supper, &c. But I have had a 
nice time ; and, though I have had no great audiences, I yet have 
hacl4l good time. To-night I had a fine audience in the city 
hall. Emerson comes this week, Friday. I give 'em the devil 
on Wednesday. At Buffalo I saw my " Brother " Hosmer. I 
did not venture to call on him without his calling on me first : so 
I only saw him after the lecture. Good-by ! 

Love to all. I shall take the cars from here Wednesday 
night at nine or at twelve, and ride all night. 

Parker's familiar letters bubbled with humpr, running 
all the way from pleasantry to fun ; not always graceful, 
but always characteristic, sometimes expressing the hilar- 
ity of his own mood, and sometimes designed to touch 
with mirth the moods of his correspondents. In this gro- 
tesque way he ministered to his own and to other minds 
diseased. A few short examples of this must be given in 
notes and extracts. The dates are of small moment. This 
note was written on a piece of birch-bark : — 

No Place, N.H., Aug. 12, 1853. 
My dear S., — I am in such a wilderness, that you will 
excuse me for writing on such rude material. I peeled it from 
a tree to-day in order to let you know what a savage country I 
have wandered into. Last night I lodged with a man who chops 
wood in the mountains all winter, and drives his logs to market 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 301 

down the river. It is so wild, that we walked twenty miles to- 
day in a howling wilderness. At one man's cabin we saw the 
skin of a bear, newly slain, nailed on the side of his house. 
Another with whom we lodged told us the bears killed six of his 
sheep last spring ; they ate up his apples, and broke the trees 
down ; they devoured his rye and his pumpkins. 

You may judge what a dreadful place it is, and so hot that I 
have bathed four times to-day ; and still the thermometer is 8o° 
in the shade. Bathing won't bring it down. 

I send this by the hand of a valiant young man. I hope the 
wile beasts will not destroy him. The man who took us in last 
night had but one daughter, and she is a — wife ! Good-by ! 
Yours faithfully (if I get out of the woods), 

Theo. Parker. 

Boston, Feb. 3, 1857. 

Dear Friends, — This is to say that I, the undersigned, 
have removed from the house in Exeter Place, and live miscel- 
laneously, — perambulating, or rather pervehiculating, through 
space in all manner of directions. That wicked wag Aristopha- 
nes personified the Athenians as Demos, who gave his reri- 
dence as Pnyx, the place of public meetings, — equivalent to 
people of town-meeting : so I might sign myself as Theodore 
Parker of everywhere, and no place in particular. / 

I live in taverns, move in railroad-cars, and have my being in 
the Music Hall and other places of public speaking. I am not 
a skylark, but a " wandering voice : " so I get no time to write 
you all (or singular) the letters I wish. Forgive me now, have 
patience with me, and I will pay ye all ; that is, so far as possi- 
bility goes. 

Poor little Potamous ! such a shining blade, that he seems 
like to eat up the scabbard. What a pity the brightness could 
not have been more uniformly distributed over the surface of 

the whole family ! I wish he could exchange places with . 

He needs the stimulus which dear Potamous gets too much of, 
I fear ; and Potamousie needs the wet blanket of dulness 
which hangs round little . 

Dear me ! if I had been born with such surroundings, really 
I might have come to something. I should have made a spoon, 
or spoiled (pronounced spilt) a horn. T. P. 

26 



302 THEODORE PARKER. 



Boston, April 19, 1856. 

. . . The sanguinarias are out at Melrose, the hepaticas at 
West Roxbury, the Mayflowers where they condescend to grow ; 
columbines are suspected at Concord ; saxifrages are in their 
(little) full glory. You at Rome have cherries of quotable 
bigness ; and grape-vines have grown a foot or more. Did not 
I leave dear, dear old sunny Italy on the 16th of April, 1844, 
and turn my face towards the Alps ? Shall I ever do the like 
again ? 

I hope you got my sermon ; and of course you read it to 
the Pope. I hardly dare ask what he thought of it. I fear he 
might not think all parts of it quite (Roman) orthodox. 

Poor Pope ! How are the hens f I hope he had eggs enough 
for Lent, and that there will be chickens in the summer. I 
send you another sermon, which I fear you had better not read 
to Pope, nor even to Mrs. Pope. I speak of his Holiness as a 
mummy. The shabby old fellow, not to send me a cardinal's 
hat and robes ! Why, how can I go to the meeting of the Pro- 
gressive Friends at Pennsylvania with nothing but my stove- 
pipe on my head, and my cut-away on my back ? If I had the 
cardinal's great red hat and the purple robes, how I would sit 
on the antislavery platform at New York and at Boston in 
anniversary-week ! How the Quakers would fall down and 
worship the image of the beast, and the great scarlet what-is- 
it in the Revelation. Dear me ! I never saw a cardinal with- 
out thinking of the whole book of Revelation and the city of 
Babyloiit. 

Poor Sumner is worse again. Dear, noble soul ! If his pain 
could be divided amongst us, how soon he would be on his 
legs ! But it is only pecuniary sufferings we can thus alleviate. 
Poverty is divisible by dollars, not sickness by numbers, not 
sadness. Good-by ! Here's a Mayflower for S. T. 

Newton Corner, July 12, 1858. 

... A little word before I go to bed. Bear is just snuggling 
herself in. It has become a very naughty Bear, and can't say 
its catechism till the Hunts come home. It is getting wild again, 
and heathenish. I don't know what to do with the creature. 

Hannah writes to the sixty-seven-years-old mother, and will 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 303 < 

tell of the sacrament of the preserved peaches -Cake ; 

and she will tell, likewise, all the news : this is her p <e 

is a woman. But I must tell Frederick May is engaged to 3 
Morse of Dorchester. Just the right thing ! " M ie in 

heaven." It was a good while coming down, though . th; 
what all the people say. Fred and Martha came over and told 
me of it. She sat in the chaise. How happy sie did 
Dear me ! I love to see these lovers. I walk .\n + : 
garden at the proper time of day, and delight to lbok at t 
birds of paradise flying after their garden of Eden. They are 
in heaven for a time. How the most precious joys are also the 
commonest! It is dear, loving God who fills the ea ; p 
with such sweet blessings, and pours out so liber- " ST. P. 

1858. 

It is the last Sunday that we shall spend at - this sea- ? 
son : so I shall write a word of a letter to our de . . and, 

as I write out of doors on one of the most 1 t the 

year, I think she will excuse the writing with \ 

with a pen. We intend to go to Bosto. n nexl lay n 

with all our worldly goods. It will t 
crockery once more: we have done no such th 
time here : a thick film of Paddy is spread over every t 
I shall also be glad to escape from the evei 
life is one continual yell, or squeal, or scream, or screech, or by 
whatever name the most disagreeable of (/tumat 
except the voice of an ill-natured woman, may l We 

have had a delightful summer, — fine weather, gooJ healtl 
all ; but I am tired of the leisure, and long to preach a 

Your beautiful book came only a week after my birthday 
itself. Had it come a week earlier, I could not have received it 
sooner; for I was absent from Massachusetts. It is a 
charming little book ; the only piece of popular song I have in 
Italian. All the songs are of love and its accompaniments, — 
youth, beauty, tenderness, &c. ; but they are singularly delicat e 
and refined. Yet it is said all come from the mouth of the 
people. If so, it is a remarkable monument of the national 
character. It has none of the wonderful richness of fancy and 
dear human love of common things which appear continually 
in the English ballads of the people and in the Volkslieder of 



u04 THEODORE PARKER. 

the Germans. Idealization of the common and homely is the 
f the aesthetics of the Teutonic mind, including 
jf that great ethnological family. It appears in 
:tures ; in Rubens, who yet had a culture quite 
alien to his lature ; and in the noblest of them all, Albrecht 
1 1 c omes out, too, in their poetry ; most perhaps, of all, 
•in S3 re; but how clear in Burns! even in (stately and 

Latiniaa filton. Of course, this appears in the literature of 
the people. One day, the Americans, also, will have a national 
e? s, and a literature to express it ; when the same 
thing will appear. Now we have none of it in artistic forms, 
"'pes, which are real bits of American na- 
ture. 

Jiei/c pon came the bell for supper: so the rest of this scrawl 

i within doors, and that, too, in Boston itself. 

Here - have no interruption, — only the hand-organs, and the 

t)nr ibuses, md the ringing at the door. It is something to be 

yid ' baby, crying, roaring, bawling, teasing, screaming, 

1 g, yelling, yowling, yelping, barking, growling, snarling, 

g, baling, squeaking, mowing ! " He is a nice baby, 

mraa's little Hrling, so he is, isn't he?" But he is also a 

r 'fast, at dinner, at supper, and between all 

me the universal baby, — baby in all forms, often 

the prettiest kind of dressing. But Bear 

have a most feminine delight in all the perform- 

esaid baby : indeed, I shrewdly suspect they 

are the (proxim xte) cause of much of the nuisance he commits. 

Here must I make an end of my letter, which it took two 
days' to write, and which was begun in Middlesex, and ended in 
Suffolk. T. 

June 16, 1857. 
is Boston now, twelve, noon ; nay, almost one, afternoon. 
Wind north-east ; sky covered with lead-colored clouds ; a storm 
and a holiday coming for to-morrow. There is to be a celebra- 
tion of the battle. A statue of Gen. Warren is to be inaugu- 
rated. Gov. Gardner is to have a finger in the pie. Mr. 
Everett and Mr. Winthrop, I think, are to do some small chores 
in the way of speaking at a dinner or elsewhere. And we are 
to have any quantity of soldiers, (Heaven save the mark !) fire- 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 305 

men, &c. Gen. Scott was expected. He was to walk in the 
procession, — no, to ride on an animal as big as the pale horse 
in West's picture of the Last Judgment, with similar following, 
I suppose. But his wife is sick in Europe ; and so he can't 
come to Massachusetts. But in his place the " Sirti " is to 
walk, preceded by (the skeleton of) old Dr. Warren riding on 
his mastodon. I only know this : " no other paper has the 

news." But the penny journals say " Gen. will not be in 

Charlestown on the 17th ; " but Sand's circus will be there, and 
the elephants, &c. So the bears have gone over to Charlestown 
to celebrate the great battle. Last year, you remember, Mr. 
was to deliver his eulogy on Washington at Cambridge- 
port on the 1 2th of June, but got frightened, and did not dare 
let fly. So, to make it all right with the public, he requested 

Dr. to give him a certificate of ill health, stating that 

his vocal organs were in such a condition that he ought not to 

speak. Now, the 18th, Mr. is to deliver the long-expected 

speech, and satisfy Mr. Public, who has been waiting these 
twelve months. I understand that the president of the " Sirti " 
is to introduce after this sort : " Gentlemen, a year ago Mr. 

could not address you (state of vokl orgns) ; but now, by the 

aid of science, and the happy disposition of his nature and his 
will, he has become vox et prceterea nihil." 

The " Sirti," it should be remarked, by the way, was 
the name given to an imaginary society existing in Mr. 
Parker's brain, consisting of his wild fancies and bad 
puns. It figures conspicuously in his familiar letters. 
The letter from which the following extract is taken was 
written in the summer of 1858, when he was struggling 
with disease : — 

" I, too, have been a traveller. Shall I give you my ' impres- 
sions ' ? At three in the afternoon, left Boston by the railroad for 
New York; distance two hundred and forty miles. Stop at 
Framingham, twenty-six miles off. Some of the people reading 
newspapers, which seems the chief literature of the people. Boys 
bring round popped corn and peanuts : these seem the chief deli- 
cacies of the country. Several persons ate the latter voracious- 
26* 



306 THEODORE PARKER. 

ly. (N.B. — The boys seem all to be of the same family, as 
they all answered to the name of ' Bub.' I had a copy of ' The 
Boston Directory,' but found no such name in that collection of 
surnames.) At Worcester, forty-four miles from Boston, found 
a town of about thirty thousand inhabitants. It has a court- 
house, jail, meeting-houses, and one enormous hospital for the 
insane. It contains a hundred and thirty-five inmates, — a large 
proportion for so small a town. Several of the Bub family 
visited us again ; some with apples and oranges as well as the 
peanuts ; others had candy, and popped corn gummed into 
balls with molasses. A few bought lozenges. (I think the sale 
of such articles is confined to the members of this family, — the 
Bubs. It must be a quite profitable business ; for an intelligent 
gentleman told me one of them would probably be in the 
Senate of the United States before long, and the other would 
stand a good chance to be governor of Massachusetts.) The 
chief business of the taverns seems to be providing for travellers. 
Many persons crowded about us with the cry, ' Have a caidjf 
(that is the American name for a coach drawn by two horses.) 
The word 'caidj,' or 'kaidj,' — for I have not seen it spelt, — 
is probably derived from the Indians, who, I suppose, had the 
same kind of vehicle. {Mem. — Look in the dictionaries in the 
Astor Library, and see what tribe of Indians.) Others called out 
with great violence, ' Temprenceous J " which seems to be another 
name for the same thing. But it has not found its way into the 
dictionaries, more than the ' Bubs ' into the directory. 

"Apple-trees are getting into blossoms. The buttercups 
have yellow flowers. There is red clover in the fields, mixed with 
white; but the red is the tallest : I suppose it is the native. 
Mr. Agassiz says red is the typical color of the continent : 
thence red men, red roses, red bricks, red combs on the cocks 
and turkeys (the latter an American bird). The cows are red; 
so are the horses ; nay, many of the farm-houses. I am told 
that the cherries are also red, the beets also, many of the apples, 
and all the native strawberries, cranberries, raspberries, and 
barberries. One gentleman told me there are red lilies, and 
that all the green blackberries are red before they are ripe. 

" The State of Connecticut has but one county, — Barnum 
County : it extends over all the State, and indicates the morals 
of the people. Mr. Barnum is the typical American : he is 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 307 

the bright consummate flower of the nation. Men say Mr. 
Buchanan is but another Barnum. I proposed to a gentle- 
man with a clerical look, if it would not be well to consolidate 
the prayers of all the churches on Mr. Barnum ; after he was 
converted, get him and Henry Ward Beecher to engineer the 
revival through the United States. He thought, with their help, 
the Tract Society might be 'saved,' and Mr. Buchanan re- 
elected in i860. 

" Reach New York quarter before twelve. City lit by gas. 
Streets are muddy when it rains. (Coachmen cry the same name 
for their vehicle as in Worcester ; viz., kaidj.) Stopped at the 
Astor House. Enormous spittoons in the rooms. Men sitting 
with their feet in chairs. {Query. — Is it to avoid dirtying their 
boots ? or is it a custom derived from the Indians ?) There are 
several churches in New York. I heard the bells strike twelve ; 
and at one went to bed in the uppermost story, with the city-hall 
clock staring me in the face. 

" Here ends the traveller's journal." 

GALE3BURG, ILL., Oct. 21, 1856. 

It is a good old ladye ; only it is a good ways off, — twelve 
hundred miles by the shortest cut. To-morrow night (at Jack- 
sonville) it will be thirteen or fourteen hundred. Don't like 
it to be so far away. What a country it is out here ! Between 
this place and Chicago there is not a hill fifteen feet high, no 
undulations, only little ripples of land in this great sea of 
earth. There are few trees. You go many miles, and find 
none. The ground, where it is ploughed, is black as coal-dust, 
and fertile as Egypt. The natural wealth of Illinois exceeds 
belief. The rapid growth of population, too, seems fabulous, 
a miracle. Thus, seven years ago, Galesburg had six hundred 
inhabitants ; now about seven thousand. One Judge Hale of 
Kenosha told me, on the 3d of July, 1835, he was following an 
Indian path through the Wisconsin Territory, and at night slept 
with only the sky above and the ground under him. There was 
not a house within many miles : only one woodsman was just 
beginning his log-cabin, chopping the trees for it. Last July 3 
he went to the same spot (by railroad), and there was the city 
of Janesville, with nine thousand inhabitants ; and he slept in a 
hotel not ten rods from the old spot where he encamped in 1835 ! 



308 THEODORE PARKER. 

Quantity is immense out here. Bulk is the word to describe 
with : quality will come later. Quantity is the great burly 
brother ; quality the nice, dainty little sister ; but both of the 
same father and mother. Babies ! — why, they are universal : 
babies in all the moods and tenses, — babies indicative, subjunc- 
tive, potential, imperative, and also infinitive ; babies present, 
imperfect, perfect, pluperfect, and in the first (or obvious) and 
second (or potential) future ; babies in the taverns, in the lec- 
ture-rooms, in the meeting-houses ; in the cars, babies. Here 
they are stationary ; there locomotive. I no more expect to 
see a woman without a baby than a man without tobacco. 
They are not only an "institution," but also a nuisance. 

Preached at Waukegan Sunday forenoon, in a public hall, to 
about eight hundred or a thousand people. Our hymn-book in 
the desk. I sent them the hymn-books years ago. We had 
live singing too. 

It is a dark day for America ; but she has seen dark years 
before. Tories are nothing new. Reading Washington's Life 
again. I wonder that we ever got through the Revolution, so 
heedless are individuals of the welfare of the whole, so many 
are only particular, so few universal or national. There is 
something radically wrong in our civilization, which leads men 
to neglect their country. The pulpit is partly to blame ; for 
while it is pounding away all the time on matters of individual, 
private concernment, — patience, prudence, prayer, benevo- 
lence, &c, in its best endeavors, — it seldom touches the great 
political duties which men owe to man as divine service of God. 
But politics is the religion of a nation, just as individual daily 
life is that of Peter and Rebecca. But how few ministers do 
(or can) look beyond mere individuals — in the "church on 
church green " and its Sunday school ! But it is not worth 
while to scold men, only to mend 'em. 

Love to all. It must be the best old ladye that ever was in 
all the world. 

Good-by ! T. P. 

Telegraph from O. F. — " Meetin 'v Sirti'n Sexn 'v The- 
olurgi. Questyun : Why did the Lord make the world? 
Answer: Nobodi els cood. Wa'n't none reddi mad: so he 
done it." 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 309 



Boston, Nov. 7, 1852. 

Poor dear old Ladye, — I had a nice time at Loring's 
Monday night. Saw Thackeray, — a great, monstrous man, six 
feet and a half high, with a huge shock of gray hair on his 
head, spectacles, a large stumpf nase, and a long old chin. 
He seemed a little shy. Sumner was there, and looked short 

beside Thackeray. It was a caution to hear "let on" 

the great men. It would have amused Wendell. Mr. Crowe, 
son of the " Nightside of Nature," I take it, was there. He 
is a secretary of Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh, and accompa- 
nies him from Cornhill to Cairo. 

Emerson was here yesterday, full of the sweetest bon- 
homie. Came to ask me to dine with him and Clough — the 
" Bothie of Toper na Fuosich," you know — and others at 
the Tremont House on Saturday. Emerson's house is in dis- 
order, and he can't give us treat at Concord, and would not 
let me give it in our house at Boston. So it is. 

Well, I am all sound and round and light and bright ; sleep 
like a pic j and have the appetite of a wiM roe on the mountains : 
so I shall soon make amends. I have answered all the letters ; 
and "owe no man any thing," according to the Scriptures. I 
have even subscribed for " The Daily Advertiser ; " and think 
in time, say a thousand years, I may be an — old man. 

Love to all, especially one ; to whom also, 

Boo! 

The pure nonsense often comes at the end of a grave 
letter, as if to relieve the sadness of his thought; for 
example : — 

West Newton, June 17, 1852. 
Dear old Ladye, — Seventy-seven years ago this day, my 
worthy grandfather felt a little different from what I feel just 
now. It was a hot day then ; but they made it hotter. I think 
it will be hot at Baltimore to-day. All Boston believes that 
Webster will be president. Seven hundred of the Hunkers 
have gone to Baltimore as outside members of the convention. 
Things look very ill for the country. If Pierce is chosen, or 
Webster, I think we shall have Cuba and half Mexico in the 



310 THEODORE PARKER. 

next administration. How long this re-action in favor of 
despotism is to last, I do not know ; but it extends every- 
where. We shall have slavery in California yet. But one good 
thing gets established, though a dangerous good, — the South 
has got the Federal Government to assume the control of slave- 
ry. One day, they will be very sorry for this. 

The whole house is in delicious confusion. We were at 
Uncle Peter's on Monday. The great oxen are gone into the 
country to board ; but the Pics are at home, and receive com- 
pany. I saw O. F. the other day with his white hat on. 
He read a paper before the "'Cademy," mathematical section, 
on the trisection of the arc. Who first did it ? That was the 
question. O. F. examined the claims of Archimedes, Zeno, 
&c. No, 'twarn't they. Who was it ? Noah trisected the 
ark for Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Never was such a family. 
O. F. recommended that Noah be made honorary member of 
the Academy. Boo ! 

Boston, May 18, 1858. 

It is an old Lad^e, — We went to Lexington yesterday, 
P.M. Emily is to pass away, and that before long. In cold 
weather she feels pretty well ; but in a warm day she wilts like 
a cut flower. I doubt that she sees midsummer. All the rest 
are well. The rheumatism alone ought to have been enough to 
stop me from going to New York ; but I fear it would not. I did 
not like to leave the Ellises in that time of trial. Either was 
reason enough for not going ; but I made public the most 
quotable. 

I am afraid you will lose interest in Boston, unless you 
know the important events of this great town : so I advise 
you thereof. 

The Daily has a paper, which was read at the Sirti last 
night, by Col. S., on " Stravgnz y v ^PinyunP Here it is. 

Boo! 

Nobody misses it. At a " meetin' of the Sirti " last night, 
the question came up on the antiquity of omnibuses. The 
usual variety of (wise) opinions was entertained. But O." F. 
decided that they were as old as the time of St. Ambrose, — 
fourth century. He quoted the well-known rule of that saint, 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 311 

not with entire accuracy ; for his imagination sometimes 
supplies his memory with facts, — In triviis unitas j i.e., " unity 
in things of 110 consequence; " for that is what he thinks is 
meant by triviis, — not, as the dictionaries say, the public 
squares where three ways meet : in cubiculis libertas ; i.e., " you 
may do what you have a mind to : " and in o?nnibus caritas j 
i.e., "good manners in an omnibus." 

Boston, Saturday Morning. 

Dear old Lad ye, — We got into town last night, driven 
in by Mrs. A., who comes up from the sea-shore in such 
weather as this. Last night I could not coax the thermometer 
down below 79 , any way we could fix it. Now, at eight and 
a half, a.m., I dare not look at it, it'is so high. Susan is here, 
quite well. In the midst of the heat, there just came a mon- 
strous African. Black / — oh, dear, how black he was ! Fat ! — 
bless me, he looked like a barrel (no, a sugar-hogshead) of tar, 
so black, so fat ! What an aggravation, with the thermometer 
at 90 in the shade ! 

We have now A. He has been studying German ; and, as 
usual, his originality develops itself into new forms : indeed, 
originality with him becomes imitation (of himself, namely). 
He has discovered a misprint in Schiller's Frauen. Now it 
reads, — 

" Ehret die Frauen, sie flechten und weben 
Himmlische Rosen in irdische Leben." 

He says, " misprint." Read so, — 

" Ehet die Frauen, sie flechten und weben 
Cottonische Paden in ihre schon Leben." 

That makes sense. 

At the last meeting of the " 'Cademy " he announced these 
new things : " Why do men eat meat and bread ? " — " Cos 
they're hungry." 

" Why do they eat fruit ? " — " Cos they like it." 

There never woz sich a fomily az our fomily ! 

I send a letter of Desor's. The frontispiece represents a 
fact. Bradford was going to disturb a pig, a monster, lying 
in the road. I remonstrated against stirring him up, and said, 



312 THEODORE PARKER. 

"Pig, pig, lie still, and slumber ; " but pig got up, and followed 
us for ten rods, accompanied by a whole troop of blessed dar- 
lings, that cried for their breakfast. So naughty Desor has 
taken me off in a scrap. Boo ! 

Catz came in safe. His arrival was announced in "The 
Caterwaul and Transcript : " and so, last night, George Tick- 
nor's cat, Sam. A. Eliot's cat, and George T. Curtis's great 
tom-cat, all came down to welcome him back ; and they scolded 
and quarrelled and spit and fought to their hearts' content. 
Good-by ! 

West Newton, July 19, 1852. 

Poor old Ladye Forty-five, — So she has got a com- 
fortable chamber for a particular person never so particular. 
Well, at the time appointed, — a long time away it is too, — I 
shall report myself. We shall have room for you here for a 
little while at the beginning of September ; and, after the mid- 
dle, as much more as you want. I should like most dearly to 
take some of the walks with you, and some of the drives : the 
waltzing, polkaing, &c, I am content to leave to you and the 
four-wived deacon. 

Boarding has its comforts for a few days, but its disadvan- 
tages for many days. I think most of the men of great intel- 
lectual renown have . associated chiefly with men of large 
intellect and of fine culture : so it was with Socrates, Aristotle, 
Bacon, Leibnitz, Newton, and the rest of such men. But what 
is so good for the head, I take it, is rather hard for the heart. 
Men who have attained a large growth in affection, in justice, in 
religion, I think have associated with all sorts and conditions 
of men. I believe one must do so to get this human sort of 
culture. A baby is better for the heart than a whole academy 
of philosophers. Martin Luther lived with his Hebe Kathie, 
and with all the plain, homely people about his little town : so 
must all teachers of religion, and all learners thereof, I fancy. It 
is a deal better to get a whole culture than a half culture. What 
business would Newton, Locke, Leibnitz, or Kant, have with a 
baby, or even a wife, or even a woman ? Thomas Aquinas, Sco- 
tus, and that sort of folks, have a right to a family of books ; no 
more : their "folks at home " are only folios. 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 313 

Out here I have got comfort with the cattle ; and the old horse 
knows me, and calls for hay ; and I talk with the dumb beast, 

who is not deaf. He is an excellent creature : and Mrs. L 

says, " E'en his failings lean to virtue's side ; " for he wants to go 
too fast. The great long-horned oxen are pets of mine. The 
pic is one of my favorites also ; and I speak to him every morn- 
ing, noon, and night, and he answers me. Then I throw him 
nice dainty pigweed and plantains, which he receives with a 
patient shrug ; for eating is " the badge of all his tribe." 

Here is a nice little boy, — Bubby White. I like him and little 
Bits o' Blossoms ; but he does not begin to compare to Mou- 
sie or famous Mites o' Teants. " To-morrow to Clark's Island 
and pastures new : " so good-night ; and night it is too. 

We have a young woman here (she is io-}-io-}-5=25) who is 
on the way to the society of O. M's. She is booked for an O. M. 
I would not mention her name for the world : she would take 
my head off, and I should be even worse treated. So don't men- 
tion the unpardonable sin to any one. Boo ! 

Here is a piece of pure nonsense addressed to a lady of 
fifty, in capital letters, as if for the eyes of a child : — 

April Fourth, 1849. 
My dear Han., — I am now at Ports-mouth. It is a small 
town close to the sea. Howe and I are at a small house where 
they take folks in to lodge if they are good. The moon shines 
here just as it shines at home. If you ask the Bear, she will 
tell you that she thinks it does so in all the world, but is not 
quite sure of it. We went from Fall River on foot to Tiverton : 
it was six miles. The land is full of hills and vales, with some 
brooks. I have seen some flocks of birds : some were black, 
and some were blue. I heard one of the black ones say, — 

" If our dear Han. 
Will do all she can ; 
If she will not be rude, 
But will try to be good, — 
Some day in the spring 
She shall hear the birds sing. 
Good lit- tie Han. : 
< She does all she can." 

27 



314 THEODORE PARKER. 

Well, to-day we mean to go from Ports-mouth to New-port. 
I hope you will get this note next day, if you will be a good girl. 
Howe walks on both of his feet. He has got a new cane ; and I 
thought I could not keep up with him if I went on two legs 
while he had three : so I got me a new cane ; and I can walk as 
fast as he. I went down to the coal-mine last night ; but. I could 
not get in. You see, they fear that men will come and spy out 
the coal ; and so they keep dark about it. Here is a steamboat 
in the bay, and a nice gall in the house. We get on quite well. 
We have seen a bridge, and some men with a great long net to 
catch fish. You must be good, my dear Han., and do all that 
the poor old Bear tells you. Give my love to her; and here is 
a kiss for Han. 

But usually a strain of pathos runs through it : — 

June 21, 1849. 

My dear Hannah, — You don't know how sad all things 
are here without you. Nothing goes well without you. The 
birds have forgot half their singing ; and Lizzy chatters more 
than ever. Do you know how hot it is here ? Mr. Shaw's 
thermometer rose so high, that it went off out of sight. I 
suppose you have a buffalo to keep you warm, and wonder 
how the poor folks at West Roxbury do who have no 
buffalo. 

What an unlucky station that is at Monterey ! I walked 
over there to-day at half -past two, p.m. There I was hot as a 
grasshopper or a kettle of tar. The " spectacles " were fixed, 
" eyes right ; " and I stood there panting like a locomotive, 
only redder in the face, and by went the cars : so I took it 
coolly, — for it was a cool thing, — and walked home. No 
Boston this day ; no Cambridge yesterday ; Cambridge the 
day before. 

You don't know it ; but to-day is the twelfth anniversary of 
my settlement. Chandler Robbins read the Scriptures : this 
day his new church is sold on account of whom it may concern. 
Ripley gave me the right hand : now he is the New- York cor- 
respondent of " The Chronotype." Whitney, Dr. Gray (illus- 
trious name, clarum et venerabile nomen), have both gone. 
Henry. Ware also is gone — to heaven. Not one that took a 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 315 

part in the services — and there were seven of them — remains 
where he was ; and three are dead. Old J. Q. Adams was the 
delegate from Quincy, and drank the milk that was left in his 
saucer after he had fished out the strawberries which he was 
lucky enough to get (I got neither strawberries nor milk) : he 
is gone. Mr. Polk, whom nobody ever heard of, has been 
President, and is really dead. Gen. Harrison, whom nobody 
ever dreamed of for any thing but drinking hard cider, has been 
in that bad eminence, and died. Capt. Taylor is not dead ; only 
buried alive as his fathers were before him. And now a fourth 
man, then as unheard of as a new baby, is President ; and I 
think the worshipful Whigs will one day wish that they had 
never heard of him, or never touched him. 

Not a word from you yet : only think of that ! I hope 
you will take care and keep out of the way of the sea- 
serpent. 

These must suffice as specimens of this man's extraor- 
dinary facility, fulness, and variety. They present but a 
meagre sketch of his sympathetic relations with people. 
It must be enough to mention that this busy man found 
moments to write letters to a little boy six or seven years 
old, living with his parents in Europe ; and to print them 
laboriously with the pen, that the child might be able to 
spell them out for himself. The temptation is great to 
print a curiously-elaborate jeu d' esprit, in the shape of 
the biography of St. Gambrinus, sent to his friend Mrs. 
Apthorp. It occupies, exclusive of the illustrations, four 
pages of foolscap ; and is a pure piece of rollicking fun, — 
a jolly bubble escaping to the upper air from a deep well 
of native joyousness, which was not satisfied to play in 
ordinary fountains of frolic. Miss F. P. Cobbe, who was 
present when it was opened at Montreux, pronounced it a 
delicious satire on the illustrated travels and overdone pic- 
ture biographies of the day. The pictures, fifty in number, 
were cut out of children's story-books, papers, cheap prints, 
advertising columns, and pasted on the thin letter-sheet in 
most amusing order. And this was done in the summer 



316 THEODORE PARKER. 

of 1858, when his animal spirits must have been at their 
lowest point ! But the water was never so low in his spring 
that thirsty souls could not come to him freely in their 
need for a long draught or a drop of moisture. These 
heaps of letters, now brown and lifeless, gladdened many 
a wilderness, and made solitary places sing, when they 
issued from his exuberant heart. It is enough for us to 
know that the refreshing tide never failed those who came 
to it. But, when the spring is dried up, the standing water 
in the reservoir becomes tasteless. 

The letters that follow show the breadth of his sympa- 
thies, as the preceding show their warmth. 

To E. Desor. 

Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 18, 1854. 
Dear Desor, — Here I am a thousand miles from dear old 
sedate Boston. I am on a lecturing-expedition. I am to lec- 
ture eleven times, and to preach once, in Indiana, Michigan, 
Ohio, and Pennsylvania. I have many things to say about the 
country and the people. I wish I had you to help me observe, 
and to generalize after the facts are known. The West, which 
I have now visited three times, impresses me much with the 
width of all things. There is a certain largeness to every 
thing, — streams, plains, trees, pumpkins, apples, swine (a hog 
in Ohio, 1854, weighed, alive, 1,980 pounds j another, 2,150), 
and men. But there is a certain coarseness of fibre also notice- 
able in all things. The wood is coarse-grained ; the nuts are big 
and fat, not nice and sweet; the apples have a coarse texture, all 
the vegetables, and all the fruits. Did you ever see the fishes 
of the Ohio ? They are the most uncouth-looking monsters I 
ever saw, save the Roman fishes in the market at Rome, — 
the Catfish, an ugly-looking devil, with a face like an owl ; 
the Spoon-billed Catfish (here is a picture of the 
" Spoon-bill Cat : " he weighed about eighty pounds : his spoon- 
bill was two feet eight inches : he looked like Dr. F r), 

looking yet worse ; the Buffalo (an overgrown sculpin), the 
Red Horse, and the Sucker. One must be hard pushed to 
eat one of these wretches. The men look sickly, yellow, and 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 317 

flabby. In Indiana I saw but one rosy-cheeked girl, about 
eighteen or nineteen. " Were you born here ? " — " No, sir : in 
New Hampshire." — " I thought so." I saw three or four hun- 
dred children in the schools at Indianapolis ; not a rosy cheek. 
The women have no bosoms, or, as " the professor " would say, 
" a very imperfect development of the glandular formation." 
They are tall and bony, their hair lank, their faces thin and 
flabby-cheeked. 

What effect is this Western climate to have on the human 
race ? It must check the intensity of the Anglo-Saxon charac- 
ter. The fertility of the soil, the dulness of the air, the general 
enervating influence of the physical circumstances, must deterio- 
rate the human being for a long time to come. Health is poor ; 
activity small, in comparison with New England. You are right 
in your estimate of American climate on Europeans. When 
Dr. F. the pachyderm came here, he weighed 293 pounds : he 
has lost 80 pounds, — over twenty-seven per cent. But I fear 
the West deteriorates Americans quite as much. It is too early 
to undertake to determine the future character of the Western- 
ers ; but this is pretty plain, — they will no more have the same 
energy as the New-Englanders than the Britons have the same 
as the Norsemen and Danes who went from Scandinavia to 
England. 

There has been a great baby-show in Ohio. One hundred 
and twenty-seven babies were offered for prizes. One received 
three hundred dollars ; one, two hundred dollars ; one, one hun- 
dred dollars ; and, besides, several gratuities were given to 
others. The prize, of course, was given to the mother. I think 
Jonathan is the first to offer prizes to the best baby. An agricul- 
tural society in England, a few years ago, gave twenty-five 
pounds for the prize ox, and five shillings for the model peasant. 
But you will see an account of the baby-show in " The New- 
York Tribune." 

Here the letter suddenly breaks off ; but in others the 
writer reverts again and again to the humanity of the New 
World. It was not as a speculative philosopher merely, 
but as a deep lover of his kind, that he watched the shift- 
ing problems of his age. 

2 7 * 



318 THEODORE PARKER. 



To Prof. E. Desor. 

West Newton, Aug. 9, 1852. 

Dear Desor, — Your very welcome letter came in due 
time, and gladdened all our hearts. We were glad to find you 
were well, and your brother in no worse condition. Of course, 
he knows nothing of me ; yet, as he is your brother, I beg you 
to present him my best wishes and kind regards. It delighted 
us all to find that you were received so kindly both at Neuf- 
chatel and at Paris ; but I always supposed it would be so, and 
that your enemies were confined to Cambridge and its hunker 
neighborhood. 

You kindly asked if I would like to have a set of the 
microscopic specimens which somebody is preparing. I should 
like them much. .If they are sent to M. Bossange, 11 Quai 
Voltaire, Paris, care of Little and Brown, Boston, they will 
reach me in safety. Let me know the cost, and I will send it. 
So if any thing remarkable appears in the way of philosophy, 
science, or any thing of note : you know how gladly I shall 
receive it. By the way, you did not give me the address of 
your friend the German bookseller at Paris. 

Now a word about the politics of Europe. It has long 
seemed to me that France was in its decadence; that the phe- 
nomena of the Bas Empire are getting reproduced. Just now, 
there are great families in Europe : 1. The Italo-Greek and 
their descendants ; 2. The Celtic ; 3. The Teutonic ; 4. The 
Ugrian, comprising the Hungarians, Finns, Lithuanians, and 
Lapps ; 5. The Turkoman ; 6. The Slaves. I take it the 
Turks will be conquered and subjugated by Russia ; that 
the Ugrians will come also under the same power ; and all the 
Slaves unite in one great, monstrous nation. The effort of 
the Hungarians, it seems to me, is only that of a nationality 
about to perish. The Italo-Greek will never rally, I fear : 
indeed, there is no example in history of an old race becoming 
young and vigorous again. What is to be hoped for from 
Greece, Italy, or Spain, the two last not only old, but with the 
Catholic religion on their backs ? The Celtic race will rapidly 
disappear. The language will not last a hundred years in Scot- 
land, Wales, or Ireland, it seems to me. Facility for inter- 
course destroys local dialects in Europe, as it prevents their 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 319 

formation in America. France, partly Celtic, partly Italo- 
Greek, and partly Teutonic (by the Alemanni, the Franci, the 
Burgundi, mixing with the old Galli or Keltse), seems likely to 
fall gradually into the condition of Italy and Spain. Then 
there are left two great families, — the Teutonic and the 
Sclavic. In Scandinavia and the Alps, I take it, they will keep 
up liberal governments, and become progressively more liberal ; 
but in the centre of Europe, it seems to me, this family will 
continually retreat before the Slaves. Then England, with her 
immense practical talent, energy, and materialism, seems to me 
likely to become more and more powerful, more and more 
liberal. This is a remarkable peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon 
race : they never fight for glory, but for gain. France is poorer 
for all her " glorious " victories : England is richer. Then 
France covets old countries : England covets new ones. Look 
at her possessions now, — Great Britain, Gibraltar, Malta, Greek 
Islands, a footing in Greece, right of way in Egypt, little bits 
of land all along the Gulf of Guinea, South Africa (and is 
now fighting the Caffres, and will soon have all the east of 
Africa), India, a footing in Siam (and is marching by that 
route to China), a footing in China, New Holland, New Zea- 
land, a footing in Borneo, multitudes of islands in the Pacific 
Ocean, Jamaica, Bermudas, half of North America. She 
has now a hundred and fifty millions of subjects, and is horri- 
bly rich and formidably wise. Then there is the Anglo-Saxon 
American, just like his mother, with the same materialism, the 
same vulgarity, the same lust for land, and longing for indi- 
vidual freedom. I take it, that, a hundred years hence, there 
will be only two great factors in the civilization of Chris- 
tendom ; viz., the Anglo-Saxon family (in two divisions, — the 
Anglo-Saxon Briton and the Anglo-Saxon American) and the 
Sclavic family. The history of mankind is getting simplified. 
It would not be surprising if these two tribes, then, should con- 
quer all the globe. In due time, I trust, a nobler race of men 
will spring up, with higher notions, to establish a higher civili- 
zation. We Anglo-Saxons are Romans of industry, as the 
Romans were Anglo-Saxons of war. See how we invade 
nations with our peddlers and workmen I True, England and 
America are just alike in this. 

I expect a good deal from the Sclavic family. Look at their 



320 THEODORE PARKER. 

great territorial possessions ! — half Europe, half Asia, a big 
piece of North America. Look at their language, with every 
sound of all the alphabets of the race except the thj at their 
large heads, the biggest in the world ; at their power in diplo- 
macy, ruling all the courts of Europe for fifty years ! Note 
the steady advance of the race in territory, in internal civili- 
zation, and all art. I think it will not be long before Russia 
is at Constantinople, and then at Athens. Let England go to 
Naples, to Rome, to Thebes, and Russia may go to Byzantium 
and Smyrna. 

Well, these are dreams, — only dreams. Poor, short-sighted 
mortals ! our faculty of prevision is most exceedingly little. 
Consider that I am dreaming. 

Now a word of America. I think Pierce and his Democrats 
will come into power ; that this will be the aim of his adminis- 
tration, — to divide California into two States (one a slave 
State), to get another slice from Mexico (slave territory), to 
make slave States out of New Mexico and Utah, to re-annex 
Cuba. This re-annexation of Cuba will be the darling object of 
the administration. It will be popular, I. With the people, who 
want a great territory, just as all the farmers want a great farm. 

2. With the capitalists : the capitalists will like it for these 
reasons, — they will then have a chance to speculate in cotton 
stock, and make lots of money. Then there must be a national 
debt of a hundred million dollars, or more : that will give them, 
I. An opportunity to defraud the government in getting the 
stock. 2. An opportunity for a safe investment of money. 

3. A high tariff to protect their manufactures. Then the trade 
with . Cuba will be so much increased, that the merchants will 
like it ; and Northern gentlemen will like to have estates in Cuba 
to live on in the winter, and escape taxation by moving thither 
from Boston, as they now run out into the country on the last 
of April to escape taxing the first of May. Then the produc- 
tiveness of the island will be much enhanced if Jonathan gets 
hold of it. 

The great difficulty is on the side of England and Spain. 
There is a secret treaty, I think, between the two nations 
(France, also, I think, is a party to it), which guarantees the 
possession of Cuba to Spain. But, if we can buy it of Spain, 
that nation is quieted. But England desires the abolition of 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 321 

slavery. I take it, the government cares nothing about it ; but 
the people do. Now, it is from the action of England that I 
have much to hope. I do not believe that American slavery 
will see the year 1900. If we undertake to get Cuba by vio- 
lence, the governor of the island has orders to liberate the 
slaves at once. England will not suffer us to keep slaves there 
without a word against it. I think we shall have a little 
trouble. " The pitcher is broke that goes oft to the well," says ' 
the proverb. If the pitcher of slavery does not get broken, it 
is not in consequence of not going to the well. 

I see, one of your Swiss-German gentlemen (Louis Vertisch) 
has written a real German philosopher's book on the geological 
changes of the earth (" Die jungste Katastrophe des Erdball : " 
Brunswick, 1852), in which he maintains that an unknown 
cosmic mass came in the neighborhood of the earth, and 
drew away part of our atmosphere. I suppose all the evils 
in the world, from " Adam's fall to the German revolution," 
are to be ascribed to the " unknown cosmic mass." I have 
before me a new edition of " Carpenter's Physiology " (8vo, pp. 
1080). which posts up the literature to the year 1851. It is all 
new except a hundred and fifty pages, and is a grand work. 
Owen's distinction between a lover and a loved is there 
observed. I have read a book of M. Mathieu (" Etudes cli- 
niques sur les Maladies des Femmes : " Paris, 1848), which con- 
tains many things that are interesting, — on hysteria, nervous- 
ness, and all sorts of exaltation, clairvoyance, possession, &c. 
The superior science of the French doctors over the English 
and American springs in the eyes at once. 

Here we have nothing new of any importance. I had a kind, 
nice letter from "the professor " a few days ago, at Pottsville, 
making new discoveries in " the infra carboniferous series " 
" almost daily." Dear, good, kind, feminine soul ! we must 
both meet him at some association of geologists on the planet 
Jupiter ; and " mi brother and I " must have just returned from 
the planet Leverrier, with specimens of the i7iatutinal series of 
limestone. How pleasant it will be ! Well, he is a good soul, 
and I like him dearly. 

Now I must tell you more about the good folks here at Bos- 
ton, &c. Mrs. Howe and Chev. have just gone to Newport. 
Howe looks ill, and seems sad : things go not right. Mrs. 



322 THEODORE PARKER. 

Howe sends the kindest regards to the Stets Lieber-wurdig in 
return for yours. " The old count " is at Newport again, railing 
against Kossuth. " Ugsh ! " says he, " have you got the great 
Kossuth fever ? " — " Not even the great Gurowski fever," re- 
plied some one. A queer fellow, that Gurowski, but, I think, more 
honest than men judge. Paskevitch gave his word of honor 
to Gurowski's sister-in-law at Warsaw, that, if he (Gurowski) 
desired it, all things should be arranged, and he might return 
with honor. The old count wrote him a violent refusal. 
" Noh, noh ! " said he. Old Fiister is actually stouter than 
ever, but has new pains in the Beinen {Beinsangste), — " effect of 
poison." He is no longer the " mastodon Kalb " which you 
used to call him : he is the mastodon selbst. He has enough to 
do in "giving hours," as he used to call it ; and now speaks 
quite well, but rather " sanft," as he says. He still thinks the 
Boston Germans are schlechte Kerlen. He desires me to remem- 
ber him to you after the most friendly sort. He is one of the 
kindliest and most womanly-tender souls that ever lived. 

We have a new German paper in Boston, " The New-Eng- 
land Zeitung," conducted by Wagner, Domscke, and Schlager : 
antislavery all through. But just now it has come out for athe- 
ism, and denies the immortality of the soul. " Es giebt kein 
Gott, und keine Unsterblichkeit," is its creed. Miss Stevenson 
is at Vermont. I go to bring her back soon. Wife sends all 
manner of love to you. I think you, Howe, and I shall yet 
make our excursion to the tropics. — Good-by ! 
Yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

To the Same. 

Boston, Jan. 29, 1853. 

Dear Desor, — There are two reasons why you could not 
read my letter of last summer, — 1. You have forgotten your 
English ; 2. You are growing old. But this shall be so plain, 
that, if you put on your spectacles, you shall read it all through. 
Well, I thank you heartily for your last kind letter, and am much 
rejoiced that you went to the German scientific meeting, and 
saw some parts of your native land which I have seen before. 
I wish I could have been with you. Some time we will journey 
together all over Germany, and up to the North, "lighting 
our pipes at -the midnight sun." Nay, perhaps we will go down 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 323 

to the equator in America, and see the grandeur of tropic 
vegetation. Did you see Alexander von Humboldt in your 
visit to Berlin ? I have more curiosity to see him than to see 
all the Konigen and Kaisern that ever stood on the world. He 
is a noble specimen of a man. When I was at Berlin in 1844, 
I had letters to him ; but he was not in the city : so I missed 
the good man. His " Kosmos " seems to me a little over-ripe : the 
tone is old-mannish ; not enough of the youth of genius in it. 

I suppose Europe will now return to the quiet pursuit of 
science and literature. " II n'y aura pas de revolution au- 
jourd'hui." The gens de salon at Paris may return to their 
opera, their petite comidie, and their jolies filles j the German 
Gelehrte may re-ascend the clouds, and thence rain down new 
systems of philosophy, Kritiken der reinen Vernunft, and the 
like. It seems as if another Kant was possible now. But I 
fear that all Continental Europe will fall a prey to what the old 
count would call Czarismus. Liberty is an Alpine plant in the 
flora of Continental Europe. It grows in Scandinavia and 
Switzerland ; but where else ? 

In Continental Europe there are four great families of the 
Caucasian race : 1st, The Celtic ; 2d, The Italo-Greek, or Classic 
family ; 3d, The Teutonic ; 4th, The Sclavic. The destinies of 
Europe are in their hands. The influence of Hungary and 
Turkey is only exceptional, and at this day quite feeble, it seems 
to me ; only restrictive, and not initiatory. Now, for the Celtic 
family, I expect nothing new or great in the political way. It 
is only in France that they have any power. In Scotland, 
Wales, Ireland, they are nothing. The Spaniards, mixed up of 
Ibero-Basques, of Celts {Celtiberi), of Classics, and of Teutons 
(Visigot/ii), are of no account. Well, in France you are re- 
enacting the old scenes of the Bas Empire. Paris is the 
Byzantium of the nineteenth century. What can you hope of 
a people that are the prey of an adventurer, who, in a time of 
revolution, lands with a tame eagle and a pocket full of debts, 
a miserable wretch without character or talents, and in two 
years is emperor of the forty million Frenchmen ? 

The Classic family is well-nigh dead. They live only by the 
bones of their fathers, the glorious names of Greece and 
Rome. Political liberty cannot revive in that worn-out soil. 

Then there is left the Teutonic and the Sclavic family. What 



/ 

/ 



324 THEODORE PARKER. 

do you expect from Germany for the next five hundred years ? 
Will freedom get established there ? What will Russia do ? I 
have more hope of the Sclavonics than of the Continental Ger- 
mans. In a hundred years, it seems to me, there will be but 
two great powers in Christendom ; viz., the Anglo-Saxons of 
England and America and the Sclavonics. I cannot believe 
that the Germans or French will stand against these hundred 
millions of Slaves. America will soon be the citadel of free- 
dom, with three million bondmen in the donjon-keep. 

Here in Massachusetts the Whigs have regained the power. 
The Hunkers are triumphant again to-day : they have elected 
their governor (Mr. Clifford), and got all the officers. Mr. 
Everett will probably be the senator. The ministers are wor- 
shipping Daniel Webster. The politicians think his opinions are 
an " amendment to the Constitution : " the clergy think his life 
one of " the evidences of religion." 

We have nothing new in the way of literature or science or 
art. Stansbury's " Survey of New Mexico " I have for you, 
and will send it soon, with several things of my own. " The 
professor " is as happy as surroundings can make him. He has 
a little neuralgia, and a " slight attack of erysipelas in the nose." 
The good soul was never happier, and is as wise as the French 
Institute. I have seen a good deal of him this winter, and love 
him more and more. He lectured to the Natural-history Society 
the other day on — what do you think ? — on Earthquake Waves. 
He won the admiration of all that heard him, — such clearness 
of statement with such nicety of speech ! 

" Old Fuster," as you call him, is often here. Miss S 

kindly teaches him English. His Bein is much better, and he 
has got a new Rock. He is a dear good soul, and is translating 
a little volume of sermons of mine just now published. Dr. 
C. T. Jackson is fighting for ether, and gets no release from 
pain by his own discovery. It is not ancesthetic to him. The 
Cabots are both well : I saw them to-day ; and they send their 
best regards to you. Dr. and Mrs. Howe are in fine condition, 
and send also their kindest salutations. The doctor and I go 
to New York this day. He is one of the editors of " The 
Commonwealth," and slashes " The Daily Advertiser " with no 
mercy. I saw your friend Mrs. John Howe yesterday. She 
was at meeting, and looks quite well. You don't know how we 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 325 

miss you. We eat the sacramental cheese on the Natural- 
history Society nights, and think of Desor ; and I imitate you, 
and ask after " Katz," &c. Wife and Miss Stevenson send 
their kindest regards. Do go down to Italy with your brother 
and see Rome, Paestum, Vesuvius. Send me the microscopic 
objects, and tell me the address of that bookseller at Paris. I 
want some books from him. 

Believe me ever most truly yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

I have a letter from Siljestrom. His wife has a son 
Hans, and he a book, — "Resa i Forenta Staternia." I shall 
send him " Mother Goose " for the Hanschen. He says Swe- 
den is dull, dull, dull. 

My sermon on Webster will be printed in a pamphlet form 
in a few weeks ; and I will send it to you, with sundry other 
things. Do go to Italy, if your brother is well enough. Send 
me some early flower in your letter. I value your gentiana 
much. One of the clergymen said, " There was only one thing 
above Daniel Webster : that was the Almighty God." There 
have been more than a hundred and thirty eulogies of Webster 
printed : only three have found any fault with the man, — May's 
(at Syracuse), Higginson's (at Worcester), and mine. Write as 
often as you can conveniently : but do not distress yourself ; for 
I know how many friends there are to claim your attention. 
Some time or another, I must see you again on this side or the 
other of the ocean. Good-by ! 

To Peter Lesley, Philadelphia. 

Boston, Nov. 15, 1857. 
My dear Mr. Lesley, — It did me great good to see your 
handwriting again ; but I fear there is little to be done this year 
in the way of lecturing, even on iron. The lecturers hereabouts 
complain of no work. Some societies have sent out their circu- 
lars, and cancelled the engagements already made ; others have 
" suspended " for this season. The way to make yourself known 
in that way is to send a line to " The New- York Tribune," and 
ask it to put your name in its list of lecturers. But I fear little 
will be done this winter. Labor stops ; and all stops. 
28 



326 THEODORE PARKER. 

I wish you lived where I could see you often, and talk over 
matters of science. Since Desor has gone, and now Prof. H. 
D. Rogers, I am in great want of scientific company. By the 
way, do you see the attack which Agassiz has made on Desor ? 
It is in a note on page ninety-seven of his " Essay on Classi- 
fication," so called; which is the general introduction to his 
contributions to the " Natural History of the United States," 
volume first, and is just published. He charges Desor with 
plagiarism from him, Agassiz ! I make no doubt that the boot 
was on the other leg, and that Agassiz took from Desor. But 
we shall see what the good soul will say for himself : I sent 
him the passage. I wish you would tell me what you think of 
Agassiz's essay. Three-quarters of it is on the subject of the 
" Bridgewater Treatises," chap. i. ; the rest on Classification, 
chap. ii. 

I wish you would tell me if Agassiz, in chap, i., removes the 
difficulty which philosophers find in their way, and which makes 
atheists of them, so the ministers say. I. find more real 
atheism amongst theologians than amongst philosophers. The 
former deny the substance of God in the world of things and 
men, and send us off to some phantom which lives (or stays) at 
a distance, and now and then " intervenes " by a miracle, — this 
Deus ex machina; they are ready to deny his laws. But the 
latter deny the existence of that God, and yet admit the imma- 
nent reality of a power of thought, will, and execution, which 
fills all space and all time, is ever active, and never needs to 
" intervene " where he forever dwells. 

Mr. Agassiz says there are " not more than six men in the 
United States who can understand his book, and perhaps twelve 
or twenty in Europe : " so I suppose it would be presumptuous 
in a man brought up on Descartes, Bacon, Leibnitz, and Newton, 
and fed on Kant, Schelling, and Hegel, not to speak of such 
babies as Plato and Aristotle, to think of comprehending the 
popular lecturing of this Swiss dissector of mud-turtles (for 
I take it this chap. i. is only a part of his lectures on the 
Evidences of Religion in Nature, delivered at Washington, or 
somewhere else). Agassiz is a man of great talents, great in- 
dustry. His power of analyzing a clam or a turtle, an echino- 
derm or a snail, is wonderful ; his skill in lecturing, and making 
the philosophy of fish pleasant to men who only catch and eat 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 327 

them, is beyond all praise : but when he comes to the meta- 
physics of all science, and the relation of the clam to the 
Causal Power and Providence of all things which are., I should 
like to know what you think of him. With hearty regards for 
you and yours, — those with the incisors, and those with the 
molars, — believe me 

Yours heartily, 

Theodore Parker. 

To David A. Wasson. 

Boston, Dec. 12, 1857. 

My dear Wasson, — Many thanks for your kind and wel- 
come letter. I know how much it cost you to write it ; and that 
dims my joy in reading it You must not write much. You 
learned to labor long ago : now " learn to wait." I ate my lunch 
in the railroad-station, and thought over all Higginson said in 
defence of the Irish. I like good plump criticism, and need it 
of tener than I get it. But I think he was mainly wrong, and 
still adhere to my opinion of the Celtic Irish. In other lectures I 
have showed at length the good they will do our ethnology. 
When I give this again, I will do so, and name the good qualities 
of the " gintleman from Carrrkk" and the poor wretches 
from Africa. 

I take Blumenbach's five races only as provisional, — five 
baskets which will hold mankind, and help us handle them. In 
respect to power of civilization, the African is at the bottom, the 
American Indian next. The history of the world, I think, shows 
this, and its prehistoric movement. I don't say it will always 
be so : don't know. 

You and I don't differ, save in words, about the Greeks. In 
the emotional element of religion, I think the Shemites surpass 
the Indo-Germans ; and the Jews were at the head of the She- 
mites. (The Phoenician took to trade, and cared no more about 
religion than a Connecticut tin-peddler, who joins any church for 
a dollar. Somebody found one of the scoundrels — a mummy 
now in an Egyptian tomb — who was circumcised. He took the 
religion of the place just as the current coin.) Religious emo- 
tion, religious will, I think, never went farther than with the 
Jews. But their intellect was sadly pinched in those narrow 
foreheads. They were cruel also, — always cruel. I doubt not 



328 THEODORE PARKER. 

they did sometimes kill a Christian baby at the Passover, or the 
anniversary of Hainan's famous day. If it had been a Chris- 
tian matt, we should not blame them much, considering how they 
got treated by men who worshipped a Jew for God. They were 
also lecherous : no language on earth, I think, is so rich in terms 
for sexual mixing. All the Shemites are given to flesh. What 
mouths they have ! — full of voluptuousness : only the negro 
beats them there. 

The Jews, like all the Shemites, incline to despotism : they 
know no other government. The Old Testament knows no king 
but one absolute : the New Testament is no wiser, — if, perhaps, 
you bate a line or two which Jesus spoke ; and they indicate a 
feeling more than a thought. The New Jerusalem is a despot- 
ism, with a Lamb for the autocrat, — a pretty lamb too, by 
the way, who gathers an army of two hundred million horse, 
and routs his enemies by the Euphrates, and then comes to 
Italy and kills men, till he makes a puddle of blood two hundred 
miles wide and three feet deep (see Rev. ix. 16 : " And the 
number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thou- 
sand thousand ; and I heard the number of them." And xiv. 
20 : " And the wine-press was trodden without the city, and blood 
came out of the wine-press, even unto the horse-bridles, by 
the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs "). In the Old 
Testament, Jehovah is King, — a terrible king too. He is not a 
constitutional king, but arbitrary, — " Thus saith the Lord." 
There is no proof of any thing ; no appeal to individual con- 
sciousness. With the Greeks all this was different ; Indo-Ger- 
manic, not Shemite. I love the Greeks, especially the authors 
you name ; but, for moral helps and religious emotional helps, I 
go to that dear Old Testament, for all ^Eschylus and Sophocles, 
&c. Do you remember any example of remorse in the Greek 
literature ? The Hebrews had .a pretty savage conception of 
God ; but he is earnest : there is no frivolity attributed to Jeho- 
vah. He is the most efficient deity of old times, — none of your 
dilettanti gods. Besides, he is wholly superior to the material 
world ; while none of the Greeks or Romans got above the idea, 
that, in some particulars, it was more than any deity or all deities. 

Get well as fast as you can. 

Yours, 

T. P. 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 329 

The following needs no introduction : — 

To George Ripley. 

Boston, Sept. 21, 1854. 

My dear George, — I will try and write so that you can 
read the matter. I have just read your papers on Pierpont and 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. I think I love and admire Emerson 
more than you do : so there are some tilings in the paper which I 
don't quite agree with. But, in the main, I like it. The spirit is 
high and generous. It is admirably written. You never wrote 
better than in the three sketches of " Pierpont," " Ralph Waldo 
Emerson," and " Andrews Norton." " Yas, it was wall done. 
But ugh he lied ! He knows he lied ! " ' 

There is no shadow in your picture of Pierpont. You once 
gave me an analysis of Pierpont (and of Sumner at the same 
time), which I thought was most masterly. You gave the shadow 
then which both made the picture more artistic, and the noble 
traits in Pierpont yet more salient. But I like your portrait of 
Pierpont better than that of Emerson ; and I am almost glad 
that you did not put in the criticisms which you made to me on 
Pierpont. Just now, considering all that he has done and suf- 
fered, it would seem a little ungenerous to be quite just. All 
pictures must be painted in reference to the light they are to 
hang in and be looked at. Now, when you come to tell about 
me, I wish you would make a picture which will make me 
ashamed of what is ill in me and in my works. I need a thor- 
ough criticism from an able hand. It is too much to expect in 
private ; but I should read with great interest a critique which 
told me of my faults of nature, culture, motive, conduct, aim, and 
manner. I know I must have made great errors ; but I don't 
see them. I am afraid that the hollow of my foot "will make a 
hole in the ground," and somebody will one day fall into it. I 
should like to be criticised as I criticised Emerson ; only better. 
Now, don't let your friendship run away with your judgment: — 

" Nought extenuate, and nothing add." 

I know you will set down nought in malice. But here are 
yet one or two things which I want in the picture. I love sci- 
ence in almost all departments, from the most abstract meta- 
physics to the most concrete application of Nature's laws in 
28* 



330 THEODORE PARKER. 

the new machine for planing oblique and irregular surfaces, 
which one of my neighbors put in his shop last week. I 
love all departments of natural history, and am at home with 
beast, bird, fish, and insect, and all manner of (phasnogamous) 
plants. 

When a boy, I had an intense passion for beauty in every 
form. I knew all the rare flowers, wild or cultivated. When a 
little boy in petticoats, I used to lie all the forenoon in June, 
and watch the great clouds, and see the incessant play of form 
and color. There was a pond a mile off, whither I used to go 
a-fishing ; but I only caught the landscape. I never fished much, 
but looked down into the water, and saw the shadows on the 
other side creep over the water, and listened to the sounds from 
the distant farms. When I was six or seven years old, there 
came a perfectly beautiful young girl to our little district-school : 
she was seven to eight. She fascinated my eyes from my book, 
and I was chid for not getting my lessons. It never happened 
before ; never after the little witch went away. She only 
staid a week ; and I cried bitterly when she went off. She 
was so handsome I did not dare speak to her, but loved to 
keep near her as a butterfly to a thistle-blossom. Her name 
was Narcissa. She fell over into the flood of time, and vanished 
before I was seven years old. I loved beauty of form before 
beauty of color. I wonder if this is usual. You know beauty 
of sound (not artificial, of music) filled me with ravishment. 
The winds in the leaves, and the rushing brooks, were a delight 
from the earliest boyhood till now. Fine little pieces of literary 
art I culled out in childhood, and committed them to memory. 
It was no effort : it did itself. Especially poetry was my delight. 
My sisters had a little bagful of clippings from the newspapers 
which helped nurse my little soul. They also encouraged me 
in my transcendental tastes for the beautiful. But hard work 
and the res angustce dorni left but a poor soil for such a harvest. 
Yet it was hard to tear the tired body from the handsome moon- 
light or the evening star. Mornings, from before daylight to 
sunrise, when forced to be abroad, gave an acquaintance with 
the beauty of Nature at that hour, which was worth more to me 
than all my night-labors brought to my father. It was poetry 
to me, even if only a dull horse or heavy oxen were my only 
companions. The pictures of old times live now in my memory, 



SPECIMENS OF CORRESPONDENCE. 331 

a never-failing delight in my hours when I am too tired to do 
any kind of work or to sleep. This hanging-garden is always 
over me ; and I rejoice therein as no Nebuchadnezzar, I fear, 
ever did. 

I love children and hens ; all sorts of men ; and have the 
oddest set of intimates you will find any scholarly man to be 
acquainted with. But I am much less of a practical man than 
men think. All my ideals of life are of philosophical and 
literary activity, with a few friends about me, Nature and 
children. Good-by ! 

Please send me the parcel I sent you, — the article from 
Chapman. Send by Adams's Express. 

Cam this chapter be closed more fittingly than with one 
of his religious sonnets, addressed to Jesus, as the model 
of his imitation ? The printed letters conspire with the 
devoted life to show how faithful was the attempt at imi- 
tation. If the success of it was incomplete, the effort was 
never relaxed, nor was the idea ever lowered. 

" O Brother, who for us didst meekly wear 
The crown of thorns about thy radiant brow ! 
What gospel from the Father didst thou bear 
Our hearts to cheer, making us happy now ? " 
" 'Tis this alone," the immortal Saviour cries : 
" To fill thy heart with ever-active love, — 
Love for the wicked as in sin he lies, 
Love for thy brother here, thy God above. 
Fear nothing ill ; 'twill vanish in its day : 
Live for the good, taking the ill thou must ; 
Toil with thy might ; with manly labor pray ; 
Living and loving, learn thy God to trust, 

And he will shed upon thy soul the blessings of the just." 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE PREACHER. 



Theodore Parker's fame as a preacher is associated 
with the Boston Music Hall ; for there his greatest efforts 
were made, and there the crowds listened to his speech. 
The hall is situated behind Winter Street, and has a 
double approach, — one from Winter Street, and one from 
Tremont through Bumstead Place. Its position insures 
for it a complete seclusion and utter silence from without. 
It has no architectural exterior for the public eye. The ap- 
proach to it is not imposing. It was built by subscriptions, 
collected under the direction of the Harvard Musical As- 
sociation, at a cost of a hundred thousand dollars for land 
and building. The design was by an English architect, Mr. 
Snell, practising his profession in Boston. Before com- 
pleting his drawings, which were submitted to the first 
authorities in London, he visited the chief public halls in 
England, with a view to avail himself of the best expe- 
rience in acoustic elements. The result was an auditorium 
admirably adapted to purposes of music, vocal or instru- 
mental, and almost equally well of speaking ; pleasantly 
lighted in the day-time by semicircular windows above the 
cornice, fifty feet from the floor, and at night by a fringe 
of gas-burners running along the cornice beneath the 
windows, round three sides of the room. The ventilation 
is sufficient, and facility for egress abundant. Two light 
galleries relieve the monotony of the long walls. The 
33 2 



THE PREACHER. 33$ 

wide platform connected with retiring rooms in the 
rear, and having behind it a recess for the organ, occupied 
one end : an ornamental screen of iron concealed the in- 
strument. The speaker's stand was an ordinary movable 
desk. At musical festivals, or on grand-concert occasions, 
seats were piled up in ranks, from the centre of the plat- 
form backward and sideward, sufficient to accommodate 
some five hundred persons, in addition to the twenty-seven 
hundred who were supplied with seats elsewhere, above and 
below : in an exigency, musical or oratorical, three thousand 
and more have found accommodation in the room itself. 
The dimensions, one hundred and thirty feet in length by 
seventy-eight in width and sixty-five in height, are accord- 
ing to most approved proportions, and satisfy the critical 
eye, as does also the simple elegance of the decoration. 

Mr. Parker's society removed from the Melodeon to 
their new place of worship on Nov. 21, 1852, with not 
a few regrets on the part of the early friends, who felt 
that the family feeling they had enjoyed would be dissi- 
pated or choked by the multitude in the vast space, and 
that intimate relations with the pastor and with one 
another would be no longer possible. On the 2d of 
March, 1856, Mr. Parker welcomed his "new colleague" 
of "majestic brow, ,r and "eyes turned inward and up- 
ward," — the bronze Beethoven, presented to the Associa- 
tion by Mr. Charles C. Perkins. When the great organ 
was set up, in 1863, the preacher could not give it wel- 
come : he was silent in his Italian grave. 

In this spacious temple, dedicated to art, Theodore 
Parker made his power felt. He grew to the place. The 
central position commanded a broad view. Standing here, 
he could be seen on all sides. The multitudinous doorways 
let in the world : it was the world he wanted. The assem- 
bly was, on the whole, the most remarkable that ever 
gathered statedly within four walls in America ; up to that 
time much the largest, if we except Whitefield's, which 



334 THEODORE PARKER. 

was composed of very different people, drawn by a very 
different attraction. Whitefield's audiences consisted of 
unintellectual people, sympathetic and passionate ; Par- 
ker's, of people unlettered and uncultivated in the main, 
but thoughtful and questioning. Whitefield was an ora- 
tor and a revivalist, who played with consummate art on 
the emotions of an excited crowd : Parker was a scholar 
and a teacher, who addressed the individual understand- 
ing and the private conscience. He had no acces- 
sories of rite, symbol, ceremony, doctrinal or ecclesiastical 
mystery. He read the old Bible, but with great free- 
dom ; and he read other writings beside. Hymns were 
sung, but not from collections in general use with Chris- 
tians. The prayers were expressions of devout feeling, 
usually of gratitude and longing, on a sober level, personal 
and tender, but without humiliation, superstition, or the 
least recognition of dogma at beginning or end. The 
sermons were grave, solid ; seldom less than an hour in 
length, often more ; and were crammed with thought. 
The preacher took the intelligence of his audience for 
granted, and often tasked it severely. To listen to him 
regularly was, indeed, a liberal education, not in theology, 
or even in religion, alone, but in politics, history, litera- 
ture, science, art, every thing that interested rational 
minds. 

He had no rhetorical gifts. His eyes were wonderfully 
clear and searching ; but their effect was marred by the 
interposition of glasses; and his countenance otherwise 
was not expressive. Neither was his figure imposing, nor 
his gesture fine, nor his action graceful. He moved but 
little as he spoke : his hand only occasionally rose and 
fell on the manuscript before him, as if to emphasize a 
passage to himself ; but his person was motionless, and 
his arm still. The discourse was read, save on rare occa- 
sions or in interpolated paragraphs, in a voice unmusical, 
and unsympathetic in its ordinary tones, with little train- 



THE PREACHER. 335 

ing or natural modulation. His audiences were held by 
the spell of earnest thought alone, uttered in language so 
simple, that a plain man hearing him remarked on leaving 
church, " Is that Theodore Parker ? You told me he was 
a remarkable man; but I understood every word he said." 
He was not like the doctor of divinity who made a point 
of having in every sermon one sentence that no one in the 
congregation could comprehend. His rule was, to have no 
sentence that was above the comprehension of the sim- 
plest intelligence. The style was never dry ; the words 
were sinewy, the sentences short and pithy; the language 
was fragrant with the odor of the fields, and rich with the 
juices of the ground. Passages of exquisite beauty 
bloomed on almost every page. Illustrations pertinent 
and racy abounded ; but there was no ambitious flight of 
rhetoric, and never an attempt to carry the heart in oppo- 
sition to the judgment. 

The audiences were singularly untractable. They did 
not assemble in the usual churchly fashion, from habit or 
association, in the mood of reverence, or of regard for the 
opinion of the world. They came in such garments as 
they had ; sat in such seats as were vacant ; went out if 
they were tired. Some brought newspapers in their pock- 
ets, which they read in the few minutes that preceded the 
preacher's entrance. Some betrayed by their manner that 
they regarded the prayer as an impertinence ; and others 
that they came for the sermon, not for the scripture or 
the hymn. The sittings were free : the expenses — which 
were not heavy, for Mr. Parker was ever greedy of a small 
salary — were met by voluntary contributions, mostly 
given by a few devoted friends and steadfast parish- 
ioners, who constituted the minister's body-guard, and 
were relied on for the active organized work of the 
society. Hence the multitude who heard him from Sun- 
day to Sunday felt none of that peculiar interest, half 
mercantile, half personal, which goes with the paying of 



336 THEODORE PARKER. 

money. No tie held them but that of intellectual and 
moral satisfaction. 

If the preacher's theological opinions, his " heresies," 
attracted many, they also repelled many. They were so 
pronounced as to offend conservatives even of the lib- 
eral class, yet so sober and reasonable as to fail often 
of satisfying radicals of an extreme school. Not a few 
bore them patiently, at first, for the sake of the hu- 
manity which they found in Music Hall, and could not 
find elsewhere. To his heresy Parker owed his " chance 
to be heard in Boston," but not the hearing he had 
there. Had he been moderately "orthodox," his follow- 
ing would probably have been larger and more influential. 
His influence was due to his intrinsic power alone. He is 
commonly thought of as exclusively intellectual. Never was 
a greater mistake. His wealth of sympathetic emotion 
was as remarkable as his wealth of mind. A good man 
who sat very near him on the platform, and, while living 
in Boston, heard every sermon he preached there, says, 
" More than half the time, in his prayer, I could see the 
tears run down his face before he was done. Two years, 
on attempting to read on Easter Sunday the story of 
the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, he could not get 
through, but, overcome by his emotions, had to sit down, 
and give way to his tears." The prayers of Sunday, 
which usually seem a difficulty hard to get over by min- 
ister and people alike, were with him a means of drawing 
far-off hearts to him, and putting them in tune for the 
sermon. " Is it not sometimes a burden to the preacher 
to go through the devotional exercises of the Sunday ? " 
asked one of his friends. "Never to me," was the reply. 
" The natural attitude of my mind has always been pray- 
erful. A snatch of such feeling passes through me as I 
walk in the streets, or engage in any work. I sing prayers 
when I loiter in the woods, or travel the quiet road : these 
founts of communion, which lie so deep, seem always 



THE PREACHER. 337 

bubbling to the surface ; and the utterance of a prayer is, 
at any time, as simple to me as breathing." 

He wrote in a sermon, " When I was a boy, I heard 
men pray great prayers and deep ones. To me it seemed 
as if an angel sang them out of the sky, and this man 
caught the sound, and copied it easily on his own string. 
I wondered all men prayed not so ; that all could not. 
Before I was a man, I learned that such inspirings come 
not thus, but of toil and pain, trial and sorrow, — here 
spread over many days, there condensed into a few • that 
it was not by gathering flowers in a meadow of June they 
got their treasures, but by diving deep into a stormy water 
that they brought up with pain the pearl of the twisted 
shell." So fervent was his utterance, so natural and hu- 
man his cry, that the flowers on the table before him 
colored his devout speech, and the voices of animals blent 
easily with his own. One Sunday, a terrier-dog, that had 
strayed into the hall, suddenly, in the midst of the prayer, 
lifted up a piercing bark. " We thank Thee, O Father of 
all, who hast made even the humblest dumb creature to 
praise thee after its own way ! " responded the supplicat- 
ing lips. 

He was preaching a discourse, one winter's day, on 
" Obstacles." Describing the man to whom obstacles are 
helps, he said, " Before such a man all obstacles will " — 
at this instant a mass of frozen snow that had collected 
on the roof came down with a noise like thunder, that 
shook the building, and startled the audience with a mo- 
mentary feeling of dismay — "slide away like the ice from 
the slated roof," said the preacher's re-assuring voice. 

This emotion gave a positive flavor to even an unprom- 
ising discourse. It disarmed many an invective of its 
power to wound. In a letter to an intimate friend, writ- 
ten in 1845, ne sa -id> " I h ave sometimes felt disappointed 
at the expression in some faces as I have spoken ; for it 
showed that they did not always appreciate what I said, 
29 



333 THEODORE PARKER. 

just as I did. I will endeavor to avoid leading astray 
such as are now ready to start in a false direction. It is 
by no means pleasant to me to write or preach negation. 
I would rather give light, however thin, than lightning, 
however sharp. It is painful to me to thunder ; but it is 
sometimes needful. I must now and then say, l Woe unto 
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! ' but the burden of 
my song will be, ' He that doeth the will of my Father,' &c." 

He loved to preach : subjects crowded on him faster 
than he could deal with them. The Sundays were too 
few ' rather than too many. Travelling in Europe, three 
thousand miles from his desk, he delighted in planning 
sermons that he could not preach. Vacations were short 
with him : he would have been glad had they been 
shorter. It was his custom to preach a fresh sermon 
every Sunday, especially on rainy days ; for the people . 
who came out in storms, he said, have a right to the best. 
When illness, or pre-occupation, or unexpected absence 
from home, prevented his preparing a new discourse, 
instead of disguising the old manuscript, he displayed it, 
herein violating another clerical tradition. But he could 
not afford to preach many old sermons. It cost him more 
to keep the new ones back than to write them. 

Parker no more made his sermons than his prayers : 
both made themselves : they came in troops, in clusters, 
in long files, that stretched over months, and even years. 
He is known to have laid out subjects for four years in 
advance, and to have adhered to his plan. Groups of 
sermon topics appear with curious frequency in the jour- 
nal. There was no conventional limitation of theme. They 
were on all vital concerns, from those of the soul to those 
of the kitchen, — religion in all aspects, personal and pub- 
lic j the greater and lesser affairs of the community ; 
social reform in all its branches ; the immediate questions 
of the day, philosophical, theological, ethical, commer- 
cial : and each theme was treated according to its own 



THE PREACHER. 339 

laws and conditions ; no pulpit rule being applied to their 
discussion, no professional bar being . erected for their 
judgment. When the topic demanded extensive research, 
the materials were collected long, sometimes a year or 
two, in advance. Careful studies were made, notes were 
kept, and generalizations from time to time applied to the 
facts amassed. His discourses on national matters or on 
themes of deep and wide import, such as " The Merchant," 
"The Perishing Classes," "The Dangerous Classes," 
" Great Cities," " The Dangers and Duties of Woman," 
" Intemperance," " Crime," cost vast labor in compiling 
statistics, as well as in reflection. They are treatises as 
well as sermons, at once profound and fascinating. His 
political discourses, dealing with each crisis as it occurred, 
are a combination of history, philosophy, and prophecy, 
that deserves a place in permanent literature ; yet they 
were prepared for exigencies that soon must pass away. 
There was conscientious work enough in them for a 
volume. His biographical discourses were models of 
thoroughness and strength. While preparing his pulpit 
oration on John Quincy Adams, he reviewed the states- 
man's whole career ; read every speech ; analyzed every 
argument ; scrutinized every act ; went behind every piece 
of public policy ; and laid out the history so simply, 
that the least-instructed intelligence could understand it. 
Before writing the greatest discourse of them all, on 
Daniel Webster dead, he did more than this : he gleaned 
from all credible sources information in regard to Mr. 
Webster's private life and character ; probed the secrets 
of his ancestry ; read the principal works of distinguished 
orators, jurists, and statesmen in England ; studied again 
the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero in order to set- 
tle precisely in his mind the rank of the great American 
as lawyer, statesman, orator, and man. 

That wonderful oration — eulogy, litany, arraignment, 
verdict — was written at a heat. The preparation for it 



340 THEODORE PARKER. 

covered weeks, nay, occupied years ; for Webster had been 
one of Parker's idols, exerting on him something like fas- 
cination. A few hours -of solitary meditation in the 
country, after the statesman's death, fused the mass of 
material so completely, that it ran like molten metal into 
the literary mould. The sentences poured hot from the 
speaker's heart. The effect in the delivery was prodigious. 
It was not uncommon for the audience, towards the close 
of Mr. Parker's impassioned discourses, to lean forward 
in rapt attention, showing, as he said once, the angels or 
the demons in their faces. They did so now, listening 
with breathless intensity; and when he spoke of his 
mourning for Webster, and cried in a choking voice, " O 
Webster, Webster ! my king, my king ! would I had died 
for thee ! " every eye was wet with tears. 

This utter fidelity to his calling made Theodore Parker 
the great preacher that he was ; probably, all things con- 
sidered, the greatest of his generation. He was greater 
than Newman Hall, who entertains adult thousands with 
Sunday - school addresses ; than Spurgeon, whom five 
or six thousand men and women flock to hear, but who 
lacks learning, knowledge of men and things, breadth and 
poetic fervor of mind, culture of intellect, and delicacy 
of perception, — an earnest, zealous, toilsome man, power- 
ful through his sectarian narrowness, not, as Parker was, 
through his human sympathy. He was greater beyond 
measure than Maurice, Robertson, Stopford Brooke, or any 
of the new Churchmen ; the delight of those who want to 
be out of the Church, and yet feel in it. He was greater 
than Channing in range of thought, in learning, in breadth 
of Human sympathy, in vitality of interest in common 
affairs, in wealth of imagination, and in the racy flavor of 
his spoken or written speech. Channing had an equal 
moral earnestness ; an equal depth of spiritual sentiment ; 
a superior gift of look, voice, expression, manner ; perhaps 
a more finely-endowed speculative apprehension ; a subtler 



THE PREACHER. 341 

insight : but, as a preacher, he addressed a smaller 'class 
of his fellow-men. His was an aristocratic, Parker's a 
democratic mind. Channing was ethereal, even when 
treading most manfully the earth \ and seraphic, even 
when urging the claims of negroes : Parker, when soar- 
ing highest, kept both feet planted on the soil ; and, when 
unfolding the most ideal principles, remembered that his 
brother held him by the hand for guidance. Channing 
always talked prose, even while dilating on transcendental 
themes : Parker, even when discussing affairs of the 
street, would break out into the language of poetry. 
Channing could sympathize with great popular ideas and 
movements, but was too fastidious to be ever in close con- 
tact with the people : Parker was a man of the people 
through and through ; one of the people, as much at home 
with the plainest as with the most cultured, more heartily 
at home with the simple than with the polished : hence 
his word ran swiftly in rough paths, while Dr. Channing's 
trod daintily in high places. 

Few persons, if asked to name the greatest living 
preacher in America, would hesitate to mention the pastor 
of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. Mr. Beecher is undoubt- 
edly a more popular speaker than Mr. Parker was : he is 
more eagerly sought after, more widely known among the 
"common people," more potential through his word. Yet 
Beecher owes much of his popularity to qualities that gave 
Parker his fame, — to his humanity, his big-heartedness, 
his feeling for nature, his simplicity, his independence, his 
humor. But the obstacles he has to contend with are noth- 
ing as compared with those that stood in Parker's way : in 
fact, he has no difficulties at all. He is not a reformer, an 
innovator, a teacher of new or unwelcome truths, a cham- 
pion of unwelcome principles. The popular drift befriends 
him. His equivocal position as minister of an Orthodox 
Congregational society makes him attractive to both con- 
servatives and liberals. Not being radical enough to shock 
29* 



342 THEODORE PARKER. 

the former, nor conservative enough to displease the latter, 
he retains people of all descriptions, much as the English 
broad Churchman gathers Episcopalians and Unitarians 
alike into his fold. Such persons as Theodore Parker 
assembled — persons whom he culled from the unchurched, 
the unbelieving, the protesting — are a minority in Mr. 
Beecher's congregation. Such a ministry is not for them : 
they want more knowledge, more courage, more devotion 
to reform, more boldness of speculation, more incisive- 
ness of speech, more living vigor of address. Parker, 
while fully Beecher's equal in humor, wit, vivacity, play- 
fulness, was greatly his superior in wealth of mental re- 
source, in depth of feeling, in force of emotion ; and in 
moral earnestness he was so vastly before him, that the 
two men cannot be spoken of in the same breath. Beech- 
er is the Spurgeon of America: Parker was its Martin 
Luther. With a wealthy congregation like that of Plym- 
outh Church, what would not Parker have done for man- 
kind ! Beecher entertains the country : Parker instructed 
and moulded it. The former is an object of interest and 
admiration : the latter was an object of love and fear. 
Where the former causes a titillation on the surface of the 
community, the latter ploughed a deep furrow in its soil. 

Judge the men by their printed sermons. The sermons 
of each are a literature. Who that can read any other 
books can read Spurgeon's volumes ? The reading-power 
of the cultivated man breaks down in their dreadful 
slough. Beecher's are dull when taken in quantity, often 
commonplace, conventional, and verbose, rarely instruc- 
tive or nobly stimulating. It is easy to believe that they 
were made on Sunday morning, after breakfast. Parker 
printed a great deal too much : not a few of his pro- 
ductions are happy in being out of print. But take up 
any of his volumes containing the sermons he thought 
worthy of permanent preservation, — the volume of " Ten 
Sermons " on religion ; the " Theism and Atheism," which 



THE PREACHER. 343 

is made up of pulpit addresses ; read the pamphlet ser- 
mons on " Immortal Life," on " The Perils of Adversity 
and Prosperity," "What Religion will do for a Man," 
"Lesson for a Midsummer Day," "The Function and 
Place of Conscience," the " Sermon of Poverty," " Of 
War," "Of Merchants," "The Chief Sins of the People," 
" The Power of a False Idea," — and you have many a long 
hour full of edification, instruction, and delight. They 
are sermons, always sermons ; not essays or disquisitions. 
Every book began as a sermon. The parenetical character 
runs through every tiling the man wrote, as the moral 
element ran through the man. . As literary productions, 
they are open to criticism as being diffuse, clumsy with 
repetitions, overloaded with illustrations ; but as sermons 
intended to reach the conscience as well as the under- 
standing of miscellaneous and heedless auditors, who 
must have a thought expressed in several forms, and 
reiterated more than once, in order to catch or retain it, 
they are almost perfect, and are destined to do a most 
important work in educating and inspiring thousands 
whom the preacher's voice never reached ; who, perhaps, 
were not born when he fell asleep. More may be learned 
from his political speeches and addresses than from 
many volumes of contemporaneous history. His specula- 
tive discourses throw light on abstruse problems of phi- 
losophy : his ordinary sermons are rich in practical wisdom 
for daily life, and will be read when hundreds of sermons 
now popular are forgotten, and even when the literature 
of the pulpit has fallen into the neglect it for the most 
part deserves. 

The habitual attendants on Theodore Parker's Sunday 
teaching will probably assent to all that has been said. 
His intimate friends and admirers will think it hardly less 
than the literal truth. There was much fault-finding, of 
course, on the part of people whose opinions were at- 
tacked, or whose prejudices were wounded. There was 



344 THEODORE PARKER. 

occasional complaint from parents of worldly mind that 
the Music-Hall preaching was not wholesome to young 
men. It was seldom that fair minds objected to the 
devotional character of the services, though occasionally 
one did. Dr. S. G. Howe, for instance, told a friend of 
Mr. Parker tjiat he did not oftener go to hear him because 
he did not /satisfy his religious nature : he preferred the 
Swedenborgian chapel. The remark wounded Parker 
deeply. "This is, in reality," he writes in his private jour- 
nal, " the most painful criticism I ever heard made on my 
ministry. I never before heard of any one as objecting 
to my preaching, that it was not religious enough. Several 
have gone away for various reasons, — these because I 
preached against war ; those because I preached against 
slavery ; yet others because I preached against intemper- 
ance and the making drunkards of men ; others, again, 
because I spoke against the misdeeds of the political par- 
ties. Some have left me because I did not believe the 
popular theology, and so hurt their feelings (all that is 
natural) \ several more because the place was not respec- 
table, and the audience was composed chiefly of ' grocers 
and mechanics : ' but this is the first that I know of who 
has gone elsewhere because the preaching was not reli- 
gious enough. But who knows how many have been 
grieved away by the same thing ? 'God help me to know 
myself, that I may see how frail I am ! ' Dr. Howe said 
that other men went down into the deep places of his 
heart more than I, and gave him a glow of religion which 
I failed to produce. Prof. Porter accused me of senti- 
mentalism in religion. I did not think that was true of a 
man that wore a blue frock, and held the plough, and 
mowed hay, and delivered temperance lectures, and 
stormed round the land, preaching antislavery, and mak- 
ing such a tumult as I once made ; but it was nearer my 
own judgment of myself than this of Dr. Howe. 

" I once loved pleasure ; and religion kept me in. I 



THE PREACHER. 345 

loved money, even now have a passion for acquisition, 
and once resolved to accumulate a hundred thousand dol- 
lars ; but religion forbade me to be rich while the poor 
needed food and the ignorant to go to college. I love 
ease; but I don't take it. Religion keeps me at this 
desk, and sends me to a thousand things, which, even now, 
I like not to do. I love fame, and for religion I took a 
path that I knew would lead me to infamy all my life ; 
and, if any thing else ever comes of it, it will be when I 
am wholly oblivious to all such things. I love the society 
of cultivated people, a good name, respectability, and all 
that ; and religious conviction has deprived me of it all, 
made me an outcast and the companion of outcasts, and 
given me a name more hated than any in all New Eng- 
land. I see men stare at me in the street, and point, and 
say, ' That is Theodore Parker,' and look at me as if I 
were a murderer. Old friends, even parishioners, will not 
bow to me in the street. I am cast out of all respectable 
society. I knew all this would come: It has come from 
my religion ; and I would not forego that religion for all 
this world can give. I have borne sorrows that bow men 
together till they can in no wise lift up themselves. But 
my comfort has been the joy of religion: my delight is the 
infinite God ; and' that has sustained me. 

" Yet I am glad of the criticism \ and, true or not, I 
will profit by it." 

Such an avowal as this in his private confessional indi- 
cates a deep and genuine feeling. Neither the sadness 
nor the complaint was affected. It was true that men 
looked at him askance, called him bitter names, — " liar," 
"scoundrel," "wolf in sheep's clothing," — names worse 
than "infidel," — and that as early as 1845. The epithets 
did not become milder, the tone gentler, or the gesture 
feebler, as years went on, and the conflict deepened 
between the reformer and the "world." The bold 
preacher who took the Sermon on the Mount at its word, 



346 THEODORE PARKER. 

revered the Commandments, loved the Beatitudes, wor- 
shipped the eternal law, applied it strictly to every private 
vice and every social evil ; who, knowing no distinction 
of persons, publicly summoned the most eminent men of 
Boston, Massachusetts, New England, the nation, before 
the judgment-seat of Christ, and openly arraigned them 
for private infidelities and public misdeeds ; the prophet 
who pointed his warning finger at Winthrop, Everett, 
Webster, Choate, great manufacturers like Lawrence, 
great capitalists like Thayer, — could not escape the op- 
probrium that is always visited on the censor of morals. 
There was no stake for him, no scourge, no jail. It 
was not necessary for him to take refuge in any Wartburg 
to elude the ecclesiastical or other hunters for his blood. 
That old-fashioned persecution, which put men on their 
mettle, roused their passions, braced them with the proud 
sense of martyrdom, and steeled them against sharp 
but momentary physical pain, would have been easier for 
one like Parker to bear than the icy neglect, the cold 
shoulder, the averted eye, the sneer that could not be 
warded off, the shadow of hate that could not be struck 
with a weapon, the venomous back-biting that no stubborn- 
ness of will could beat back. To " battle against flesh and 
blood " is comparatively easy ; for flesh is hard with mus- 
cle, and blood hot with flame : but to " battle against the 
wicked spirits that dwell in the air " makes the bravest 
faint. 

From the Journal. 

Feb. 16, 1851. 

This is the sixth anniversary of my coming to the Melodeon. 
I little knew what I had to encounter, nor who would come to 
help me do the work. I have found Boston worse by far than 
I expected. I have been disappointed in its intellectual power, 
in the intellect of its controlling men, and still more in their 
moral character. But, on the other hand, I have found a power 
of goodness in quarters where I did not look for it. My con- 
fidence in the people, in mankind, is strengthened. My con- 



THE PREACHER. 347 

fidence in men of the mercantile profession in Boston is much 
weakened. I know noble exceptions. But Boston is the me- 
tropolis of snobs. 

Thursday, March 27, 1851. 
To me it seems as if my life was a failure. Let me look 
at it, — 

1. Do?nestically. — 'Tis mainly so : for I have no children; 
and what is a house without a little "mite o' teants," or "bits o' 
blossoms " ? 

2. Socially. — It is completely a failure. Here I am as 
much an outcast from society as if I Were a convicted pirate : 
I mean from all that calls itself " decent society," " respectable 
society," in Boston. 

3. Professio7ially. — I stand all alone ; not a minister with 
me. I see no young men rising up to take ground with me, or 
in advance of me. I think, that, with a solitary exception, my 
professional influence has not been felt in a single young minis- 
ter's soul. True, I have a noble parish : that I am proud of 
with a pride that makes me humble. 

Wednesday, Sept. 24, 1851. 
The parish committee applied for the Masonic Temple to hold 
our meetings in for a few Sundays; and, after due deliberation, 
were refused, on the ground that it would injure the reputa- 
tion of the house. Mr. W. felt badly about it ; Mr. A. not. I 
only looked for this result. There is no indignity that I do not 
expect, if an opportunity offers for it. All things have their 
penalty. 

Tuesday, April 27, 1852. 
Kossuth came to Boston. I rejoice at his advent here ; but 
none of the rich men appeared in the streets. Old Josiah 
Quincy was the only distinguished citizen that I saw in public. 
Many prominent persons closed their curtains, and one would 
not allow his familv to go to the window. 

Nov. 20. 
In Boston I have universally been treated with studied neg- 
lect, and often with deliberate and premeditated insult. When 
I left the parish at West Roxbury, I was treated quite ill, and 



348 THEODORE PARKER. 

with the design to wound my feelings. I know very well at 
whose instigation it has all been done, and am not disposed to 
blame the majority. 

The letters abound in similar confessions. 

To Rev. Dr. Francis. 

March 12, 1852. 

... I am sorry to hear you complain of your lot. It seems to 
me you ought to be a happy man, — material wants all met, a 
useful and respectable position in society, incubating some eggs 
which the Unitarian hen lays from year to year, warming them 
into ministerial chickenhood, brooding over some other eggs in 
the college-chapel, with two children, the respect of the de- 
nomination, and not an enemy in the world. Really, my good 
friend, it seems to me you ought to be happy. Think of me, 
hated, shunned, hooted at ; not thought worthy to be even a 
member of the Boston Association of Ministers or of the 
P. B. K. ! Not half a dozen ministers in the land but they abhor 
me ; call me " infidel : " even you and Lamson would not ex- 
change with me for ten years past. I have no child, and the 
worst reputation of any minister in all America. Yet I think I 
am not ill used, take it altogether. I am a happy man. None 
of these things disturb me. I have my own duty to do, and joys 
to delight in. Think of those poor Germans, scholars in 
Boston! — poor companionless exiles, set down in vulgar, tory 
Boston, and shivering with cold, yet thanking God that it is not 
an Austrian dungeon. Why, you and I might have "glorified 
God in the grass market," if we had lived two hundred years 
ago, or three thousand miles east of New England. Come, let 
us be happy. I, at least, have had quite as good a time in the 
world as I have merited, and daily bless God for favors 
undeserved. 

Of course, a sensitive nature suffers where an insensible 
one does not feel. Parker's nature was keenly sensitive, 
and made what others might have regarded as slight 
affronts malicious insults and studied outrages. Possibly 
his sensitiveness now and then imagined affronts where 



THE PREACHER. 349 

none were intended. But he was not suspicious : the 
morbid taint, if it existed, was very slight. He tried never 
to entertain a disposition towards others he could not 
justify ; and any one acquainted with the social condition 
of New England between 1850 and i860 will find it much 
easier to believe than to disbelieve that he had excellent 
grounds for his feeling. Outspoken reformers were 
treated with disdain. Not only men like Garrison, whom 
nobody in " society " knew, but men like Phillips, whom 
everybody knew, were put under the social .ban. Charles 
Sumner, the pet of society, a worshipper at King's 
Chapel, was outlawed, cut in the streets, avoided, dropped 
from fashionable visiting-lists, on account of his anti- 
slavery opinions. Others less courageous, or more tram- 
melled by conventionalities, shrunk from the ordeal, having 
ventured near enough to feel the scorch of the. flame on 
their clothes. All Dr. Channing's fastidiousness, quiet- 
ness, strength of family connection and of personal saint- 
liness, were needed to save him from social and ministerial 
neglect. They did not save him from dislike, suspicion, 
and ugly comment among his brethren. Dr. Howe, who had 
lived in Boston for twenty years, most of the time at the 
head of the Blind Institution, declared that he never re- 
ceived any sign of recognition from the city authorities 
in the shape of an invitation to any of their festivities. 
Parker added to the worst offences of these noble men 
that of theological heresy. He was a Garrison, a Sumner, 
a Channing, a Pierpont, combined ; and he was more 
offensive to the respectability of Boston than either, 
because he was an " infidel," and an infidel among Unita- 
rians, who were the ruling sect. He discredited the reli- 
gion of the churches. 

And he did it every week, on Sunday, — not by editing 
a paper which the nobility never saw ; not by making a 
strong speech on anniversary occasions, or delivering 
a grand oration on a Fourth of July ; but by preaching 



350 THEODORE PARKER. 

great gospel-sermons — one every seven days — to two or 
three thousand people, and having them reported in the 
daily papers. He was an incessant thorn, a Nessus shirt 
that could not be pulled off, a dreadful presence that 
could not be laid. He was felt every time he moved. 
Even from his silent lips fell rebuke ; through his shut 
eyelids flashed lightnings. He was loved and he was 
hated, both more than he knew. Fortunately he could 
always lose himself in his darling books; he could forget 
himself quite in the bosom of his friends ; he could find 
himself in communion with his Father. 

At the close of this chapter a word will not be out of 
place, though it may not be necessary, touching the intel- 
lectual influence of Mr. Parker's preaching. He is com- 
monly thought of in a senseless, traditional sort of way, as 
a denier, a destroyer of faith. This every positive teacher 
must be : his " yea " will cast a shadow proportionate to 
its own substance. Luther had a strong negative side ; 
so did Calvin ; so did Wesley ; so did Channing. Only 
the light wisp of vapor causes neither darkness nor chill. 
The man who departs from accepted opinions puts them 
away : if he bolts from them, he denies them ; if he is 
expelled by them, he spurns them. To Mr. Parker the 
truth was an open common, which he trod with stout 
walking-shoes, no doubt to the offence of the fastidious ; 
but he traversed it on human errands. The occasional 
hearer of a single discourse might experience a severe 
shock ; could not help it, if he was mentally thin-skinned. 
The frank preacher spoke his mind. Questions were 
started to which the casual listener found no answer ; 
doubts were raised which the novice, unable to lay them 
himself, presumed the speaker unable to quell ; the swift 
thoughts would strike heedless minds at an unfortunate 
angle, and so wound them that they went limping away to 
warn their friends against the poisonous tongue. But 
there was no more positive preacher: by this very sign he 



THE PREACHER. 351 

was positive. To build up faith on imperishable founda- 
tions was his one purpose ; to rescue it from earthquake 
and flood, to transfer it from the howling wilderness to 
the safe city, to enable it to stand by virtue of the 
rational laws rather than by force of clamps and buttresses, 
was the aim of his life. And in this he succeeded. He 
created five convictions where he unsettled one. He 
made ten believers for one infidel. They who listened to 
him statedly felt the ground firmer under their tread from 
week to week; were conscious more and more of the 
reality of things unseen, and the validity of intangible 
hopes. Could it have been otherwise ? Conviction must 
beget conviction : it cannot beget scepticism, unless it be 
incidentally, in loose and spongy minds. Convictions 
have roots, and roots must have soil. Parker did his best 
to fill in the swampy ground before building. If he but 
partially succeeded in many cases, the fault was not en- 
tirely his. He could not choose his audience, nor force 
them to remain till his work was finished. Hold not the 
sower answerable for farm and climate. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE REFORMER. 



Theodore Parker came to Boston as a theological, 
not as a social reformer ; but life in the city brought him 
into such close contact with misery, crime, and vice, that 
he could not stand aloof. A reformer by instinct, readily 
kindled into indignation at the thought of evils he never 
saw, the daily communication with evil in its concrete 
forms moved and roused every energy in him. His 
gravest charge against religion was not its superstition, 
but its inhumanity. 

From the Journal. 

" I have sometimes in the woods found the dead body of an 
eagle, all dry, and yet tenanted by horrid worms, — a fetid, noi- 
some thing. Once it was an eagle, that soared and screamed in 
its awful heaven, the playmate of the lightning and the symbol of 
the thunder : now it is carrion. So, too, the traveller in Sahara 
finds in the desert a camel, all dead, grim, and dried up, only 
skin, bones, and emaciated muscle, shrivelled by the hot wind of 
the wilderness. Once it was a ship of the desert, carrying food 
in his pack-saddle, and water in himself. How the children 
loved the camel ! Now it is all dead and worthless, very 
noisome, and only supplicating burial ; its teeth, long and use- 
less and dry, protruding from its withered lips.. But crazy men 
stood by and told me that the dead camels were still the only 
ships of the desert, and the thunder of heaven slept in the 
eagle's claws. 

" The clergy leave the errors (lies), follies, and sins of the 
352 



THE REFORMER. 353 

times alone, and go, first to routine, and second to mysti- 
cism. 

" They erect sin (which is a fact) into a principle, and teach 
a theory of wickedness, — e.g., declare there is no ' higher law ; ' 
justify slavery and fugitive-slave law ; praise the sins of men in 
high office." 

In philosophy Parker was an optimist. His faith in 
the infinite God, " Father and Mother too," made him so. 

"Optimism," he says in the journal (January, 1848), "is the 
piety of science. In the world of creatures subordinate to their 
instinct, there is only enough capacity of pain to insure the 
preservation of life and limb. Hunger is no evil, but only a 
stimulus powerful enough to provoke the lion and the sloth to 
do their work. 

" So is it in human affairs. Take the whole world together, the 
whole race : sin is the provocation to virtue. Take remorse, 
the subjective and self-conscious evil of sin ; take shortcoming, 
the subjective result, not necessarily self-conscious ; take out- 
ward evils from slavery, war, intemperance, pauperism, &c, — 
these, all the sufferings of the human race, are just adequate to 
waken mankind, and put him about toil for a greater good. 
Take the evils which come of pauperism now, begging, &c. : 
all that suffering has this result : — 

" 1. It stimulates men to toil rather than starve. 

" 2. It stimulates men to think out a less wasteful mode of 
life. When that comes, see what more there will be of life and 
welfare. God is a loving Father, not a fond one who spoils his 
children." 

But Parker was no idle optimist, disposed to sit still 
and see Providence work up the raw material of evil into 
beatitude. He believed in conscience as a powerful 
operative in the celestial factory ; in his particular con- 
science as an important wheel, rod, strap, driving-beam, 
or what not, in the engine-room ; and was mindful to keep 
it in good working-order. Small faith had he in a Provi- 
dence that left out man ; in a living God who did not care 
3°* 



354 THEODORE PARKER. 

whether his highest attributes in their highest incarnation 
co-operated with him or not ; in a Divine Will that worked 
underground alone, in chemistry, gravitation, physiology. 
His God was human, and, through humanity, made him- 
self felt: thus his optimism was an inspiration, not an 
incubus. 

" Men begin and say, * The Right.' It seems hard to for- 
get themselves : so they say, < The Right and I.' That serves 
their turn : so they take another step, and say, * I and the 
Right.' That does a good deal better ; and they end by say- 
ing, ' I, without the Right, or against it.' Thus they go 
to the Devil, and nobody cares how soon. God honors him 
who says, ' The Right.' " 

I shall sum up in this chapter Mr. Parker's opinions on 
the leading reforms of his time, collecting passages from 
letters and journals of different dates ; this method being 
more convenient and more effective than a reference to 
his views at intervals along his career. The opinions 
changed little, if at all, in course of years; so that dates 
are of little value. 

THE SABBATH AND SUNDAY. 

In 1848 the agitation against the perpetuation of the 
Hebrew sabbath in Christian society, which had been 
going on for a good while, broke out in the form of a call 
for an Anti-Sabbath Convention, written by Mr. Garrison, 
and signed by many leading reformers, including Mr. 
Parker. The object in view by him was the restoration 
of the Sunday to its place as a day of spiritual recrea- 
tion, improvement, and joy ; the abrogation of penal laws 
that punished as crime innocent, beneficent, and even 
necessary infringements of the ancient Mosaic institu- 
tions -, and the extension of freedom of conscience to men 
of all faiths. The convention met in March, and resulted, 
as conventions so often do, in a large pamphlet, the most 



THE REFORMER. 355 

interesting and valuable part of which was Mr. Parker's 
exhaustive speech on the whole subject, containing essen- 
tially the views that were expressed in a sermon on " The 
Most Christian Use of Sunday," which was preached 
two months earlier. It was too moderate in tone to sat- 
isfy the convention, crowded as it was with radicals of 
the extremest description, but too advanced in spirit to 
suit even the " liberal " community of Boston. Nearly 
two months before the convention, he wrote to Rev. In- 
crease Smith, — 

" The Anti-Sabbath Convention is not to be an Anti-Sun- 
day Convention : not a bit of it. I think we can make Sunday 
ten times more valuable than it is now, only by abating the 
nonsense connected with it. 

"I have all along been a little afraid of a re-action from the 
sour, stiff, Jewish way of keeping the Sunday, into a low, 
coarse, material, voluptuous, or mere money-making abuse of 
it. But, if we take it in time, we can cast out the Devil without 
calling in the aid of Beelzebub. The past is always pregnant 
with the future. The problem of the present is to deliver the 
past. If the case is treated scientifically, the labor is easy, the 
throes natural, and the babe is born ; but, if the case is not 
treated scientifically, the labor is long and difficult, the throes 
unnatural, and the sufferings atrocious. The poor old matron 
must smart under the forceps, perhaps submit to the Caesarian 
operation, perhaps die; and the little monster who thus comes 
into the world by a matricide is himself in a sad condition, and 
will have a sad remembrance all his life of the fact that he 
killed his mother. 

" Now, I think that we can deliver the Jewish sabbath of a 
fine healthy Sunday, who will remember that he comes of a 
Hebrew stock on one side, but that mankind is his father ; and, 
while he labors for the human race, will never make mouths at 
the mother who bore him. But, if the matter be delayed a few 
years, I think there is danger for the health of both child and 
mother. 

" I hope you will come to the convention, and will speak too. 
I mean to do so ; but as I am not a bit of a re-actionist, and 



356 THEODORE PARKER. 

share none of the excesses of either party, I suppose I shall be 
too radical for the conservatives, and too conservative for the 
radicals, and so be between two fires, — cross-fires too." 

And so indeed it proved. I copy from the journal the 
resolutions he prepared for the convention, but which did 
not pass: — 

" I. That it is not our design to weaken the moral considera- 
tions or arguments which lead Christians to devote Sunday to 
worship, and efforts to promote their growth in religion. 

" 2. That we learn from history, from observation, and all our 
experience, that the custom of devoting one day in the week to 
the special work of spiritual culture has produced very happy 
results. 

" 3. That we desire to remove such obstacles as now hinder 
men from the most Christian use of the first day in the week. 

" 4. That we consider the superstitious opinions respecting 
the origin of the institution of the Sunday, as a day to be de- 
voted to religious purposes, to form the chief obstacle in the 
way of a yet more profitable use of that day. 

" 5. That we should lament to see the Sunday devoted to labor 
or to sport; for, though we think all days are equally holy, we 
yet consider that the custom of devoting one day in the week 
mainly to spiritual culture is still of great advantage to mankind. 

" 6. That, as Christians and as men, we lament and protest 
against all attempts of governments to tyrannize over the con- 
sciences of men." 

From the Journal. 

March 23. 

The Anti-Sabbath Convention assembled to-day. It was a 
more respectable-looking body of men than I expected to see 
together. Mr. Garrison's call was read, and sounded well. His 
resolutions were thorough, but had some of the infelicities which 
have always been distasteful to me. 

24th. — Garrison's resolutions passed. I voted against 
some, for some, and was silent upon others. My own lie on 
the table ; for after so much objection was made to them by 
Lucretia Mott, Garrison, Foster, and Pillsbury, I thought it not 
worth while to disturb the convention with such matters. 



THE REFORMER. 357 

The report of the convention contains about all that 
can be said on the subject, and is richly worth reading. 

TEMPERANCE. 

The same moderation of opinion that characterized Mr. 
Parker's views on the sabbath question marked his ex- 
pressed views on temperance. The studies on intemper- 
ance are frequent and minute in the private journal. He 
made them everywhere, — in Northern and Southern Eu- 
rope, England, America. The question was interesting to 
him economically, morally, socially, ethnologically, nation- 
ally. He was a temperate man himself, abstaining from 
wine till his physicians advised it as a medicine. I find 
this record in the journal, under date of Jan. 26, 1846 : — 

" To-day a man came out from Boston to sign in my pres- 
ence the temperance pledge. He brought two of them. I 
handed him a gold pen to write it with, and added mine with 
his. He keeps one, and I keep the other." 

Often in sermons he said tremendous things about in- 
temperance. The " drunkard-makers," as he called the 
traders in ardent spirits, came in for their share of his 
blasting invective. The " demon of the still " he warned 
people against ; did his best to paint black and to exor- 
cise. His rhetoric was fearful : " You see men about 
your streets all afire \ some half burnt down • some with 
all the soul burned out, only the cinders left of the man, 
— the shell and wall, and that tumbling and tottering, 
ready to fall. Who of you has not lost a relative, at least 
a friend, in that withering flame ? " John Pierpont, the 
champion of temperance in the Boston pulpit, had his 
sympathy to the last \ and the people who expelled him 
from Hollis Street for preaching against the evil by which 
his wealthy parishioners lived, received at his hands a cas- 
tigation they neither forgave nor forgot. 



358 THEODORE PARKER. 

But Parker never ceased to be a student of facts, 
whether they made for a theory or against it. In a long 
letter, written in 1858 to Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, who had 
asked him for the results of his observations on consump- 
tion, he says, — 

" Intemperate habits (where the man drinks a pure though 
coarse and fiery liquor, like New-England rum) tend to check 
the consumptive tendency ; though the drunkard, who himself 
escapes its consequences, may transmit the fatal seed to his 
children. 

" I knew a consumptive family living in an unhealthy situation, 
who had four sons. Two were often drunk, and always intem- 
perate, — one of them as long as I remember ; both consumptive 
in early life, but now both hearty men, from sixty to seventy. 
The two others were temperate, — one drinking moderately, the 
other but occasionally : they both died of consumption, the 
oldest not over forty-five. 

" Another consumptive family, living in such a situation as 
has been already described, had many sons and several daugh- 
ters. The daughters were all temperate, married, settled else- 
where, had children, died of consumption, bequeathing it to 
their posterity. Five of the sons whom I knew were drunk- 
ards ; some, of the extremest description. They all had the 
consumptive build, and in early life showed signs of the dis- 
ease ; but none of them died of it : some of them are still burn- 
ing in rum." 



The last expression shows that Mr. Parker thought the 
tendency to consumption no excuse for the intemperance ; 
though he himself drank red wine, and even brandy, when 
threatened by the same disease. There is no evidence 
that in the last danger he regretted not having been a sot 
as a preventive. Physiological questions he kept distinct 
from moral. 

Thus he comments in the journal on the prohibitory law 
that was passed in Maine in the winter of 1850-51 : — 



THE REFORMER. 359 

" They have a new law in Maine, passed last winter, which 
went into operation in May or June. This prohibits the use of 
all intoxicating drinks except for medical or mechanical pur- 
poses. They are now enforcing it with great vigor. It makes 
the whole State an asylum for the drunkard. The principle was 
long ago acted on, though perhaps not recognized, that the 
public should seize and destroy things deadly or dangerous to 
the community. Thus no man is allowed to keep a ' dangerous 
beast.' In France, and perhaps all countries, the government 
seizes contaminated meat, &c. Instruments for gambling, for 
counterfeiting, &c, are also contraband of peace. Suspected 
persons are deprived of arms in war time. All this is of the 
same principle. In Ohio there is a party — I hope a large one — 
that will vote for none but teetotalers. If Maine can keep her 
actual law, and Ohio her contemplated one, for a single genera- 
tion, it will be of immense value to the State. 

" The law seems an invasion of private right. It is an inva- 
sion, but for the sake of preserving the rights of all. I think 
wine is a good thing: so is beer, rum, brandy, and the like, 
when rightly used. I think the teetotalers are right in their 
practice for these ti?nes, but wrong in their principles. I believe 
it will be found on examination, that, other things being equal, 
men in social life who use stimulants moderately live longer, 
and have a sounder old age, than the teetotalers. I don't know 
this, but believe it. I fancy that wine is the best of stimulants. 
But now I think that nine-tenths of the alcoholic stimulus that is 
used is abused. The evil is so monstrous, so patent, so univer- 
sal, that it becomes the duty of the State to take care of its citi- 
zens ; the whole, of its parts. If my house gets a-fire, the bells 
are rung, the neighborhood called together, the engines brought 
out, and water put on it till my garret is a swamp. But, as I am 
fully insured, I don't care for the fire, and contend that my 
rights are invaded by the engine-men and their water. They 
say, ' Sir, you would burn down the town.' " 



This is the whole of Mr. Parker's doctrine on this 
momentous subject. It is not original. In the mouths of 
some people it would have a fanatical sound on its practi- 
cal side, and an empty sound on its philosophical ; but from 



360 THEODORE PARKER. 

his it sounded otherwise. His earnest humanity interpreted 
both sides ; forbade his being cold, forbade his being hot. 
He looked at the physiological question as a philosopher, 
at the social evil as a man. The aspect that is conspicu- 
ous gains his attention. If the evil alone is conspicuous, he 
will lay aside the most plausible theory that interferes with 
the directness of his blow. Each class of facts in its own 
order ; first, that which bears immediately on the moral 
salvation of men. That he held to be primary ; there he 
had no doubts. Whatever questions might be open to dis- 
pute, the question that was not at all in dispute was the 
question of duty on the part of the strong to aid the weak, 
of the safe to rescue the perishing, of the wise to teach 
the simple. Let government represent the conscience and 
intelligence of the people, and, to his practical under- 
standing, the matter was plain : if the government failed 
to represent the conscience and intelligence of the people, 
it was the reformer's office to mend it so that it would. 
Parker was a realist ; no doctrinaire, no sentimentalist. 
He had no patent medicine or infallible pill : he could 
not march with a trainband, but was prepared to go from 
one position on a question to another, as the fortunes of 
the battle turned ; his principle being, to win the battle of 
humanity on the field of fact. The new fact determined 
the new attitude. 

WAR. 

The following extract from a letter to his friend Robert 
White, written June 8, 1852, declares that Mr. Parker was 
far from being a non-resistant : — 

" In respect to repelling force by force, I should differ from 
you widely. I respect the conduct of the Friends in this matter 
also ; but I do not share their opinions. I follow what seems to 
me the 'light of nature.' It seems to me the opinion of Jesus is 
made too much of in this particular. He supposed the 'world' 
was soon to end, and the ' kingdom of heaven ' was presently to 



THE REFORMER. 36 1 

be established. He therefore commands his followers to ' resist 
not evil j ' not only not to resist with violence, but not at all. In 
like manner, he tells them to ' take no thought for the morrow.'' 
These counsels, I take it, were given in the absolute sense of the 
words, and would do well enough for a world with no future. 
The day was ' at hand ' when the Son of man should come with 
power and great glory, and give fourfold for all given in charity, 
and eternal life besides. But the Son of man (or God) is to use 
violence of the most terrible character (Matt. xxv. 31-46). 
Men were not to take vengeance, or even to resist wrong ; not 
to meditate the defence they were to make when brought before 
a court : all was to be done for them by supernatural power. 
These things being so, with all my veneration for the character of 
Jesus, and my reverence for his general principles of morality 
and religion, I cannot accept his rule of conduct in such mat- 
ters. 

" Yet I think violence is resorted to nine times when 'it is 
needless to every one instance when it is needed. I have never 
preached against the doctrine of the non-resistants, but often 
against the excess of violence in the state, the church, the 
community, and the family. I think cases may occur in which 
it would be my duty to repel violence by violence, even with tak- 
ing life. Better men than I am think quite differently ; and I 
respect their conscientiousness, but must be ruled by my own 
conscience, and, till otherwise enlightened, still use violence, if 
need be, to help a fugitive." 

So much for the general principle. Touching the prob- 
lem of war in particular, he rather skirted the gigantic 
subject than doggedly attacked it. He was exceedingly 
curious about war, — the cost of it ; the expense of main- 
taining armies ; the waste of life ; the effects, physical and 
moral, on society, whether to stunt and brutalize, or to stim- 
ulate and ennoble ; the part it played in the progress of 
mankind; its avoidableness orinevitableness; the amount 
of guilt implied in it ; the value of the virtues it educated. 
His inquiries extended as far as to the strength of cannon, 
and the ordinary supply of ammunition kept on hand by 
government; but no rule was given that covered every 
3 1 



362 THEODORE PARKER. 

special case. No doubt he thought war occasionally justi- 
fiable and beneficent, as well as morally inevitable. But 
the perusal of such a letter as he wrote to Charles Sumner 
after reading his superb Fourth-of-July oration on " The 
True Grandeur of Nations " leaves no doubt in regard to 
the nature of his moral sentiments : — 

West Roxbury, Aug. 17, 1845. 

Dear Sir, — I hope you will excuse one so nearly a 
stranger to you as myself for addressing you this note ; but I 
cannot forbear writing. I have just read your oration on " The 
True Grandeur of Nations " for the second time, and write to 
express to you my sense of the great value of that work, and 
my gratitude to you for delivering it on such an occasion. 
Boston is a queer little city : the public is a desperate tyrant 
there, and it is seldom that one dares disobey the commands of 
public opinion. I know the reproaches you have already 
received from your friends, who will now, perhaps, become 
your foes. I have heard all sorts of ill motives attributed to 
you, and know that you must suffer attack from men of low 
morals, who can only swear by their party, and live only in pub- 
lic opinion. The Church and State are both ready to engage in 
war, however unjust, if a little territory can be added to the 
national domain thereby. The great maxims of Christianity, 
the very words of Christ, are almost wholly forgotten. Few 
dare move an inch in advance of public opinion. 

I thank you with all my heart for so nobly exposing the evils 
of war, its worthlessness and its waste. The noises made about 
you show plainly that you have hit the nail on the head. I am 
glad the " park of artillery " got let off against you. 

Laudari a viro laudato is thought of some value ; and so it is 
no small praise to be censured by some men. I hope you will 
find a rich reward in the certainty that you have done a duty 
and a service to mankind. I wish a cheap edition might be 
printed ; for I want to scatter abroad fifty or a hundred copies. 
Would it be possible to print a cheap edition like that of Mr. 
Mann's noble oration ? 

I beg you to excuse me for writing you this letter, and be- 
Very respectfully yours, &c, 

Theo. Parker. 



THE REFORMER. 363 

The sermon on War, preached Jan. 4, 1846, and the 
special sermon on the Mexican War, preached June 25, 
1848, leave no doubt in regard to the tendency of Mr. 
Parker's own teaching on this great subject. 

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 

The strong preacher's convictions on this point were 
spoken without qualification ; not often, perhaps, but with 
emphasis. 

From the Journal. 

May 30, 1845. 

Attended the anti- capital -punishment meeting, — nothing 
remarkable, but as a sign of the times. Soon this sin of judi- 
cial murder will be over. {Mem. — The remarkable variety of 
persons : all conditions were represented there.) 

Aug. 30, 1850. 
To-day, by command of the Governor of Massachusetts, Dr. 
John White Webster, professor of chemistry and mineralogy in 
Harvard University, was hanged in the jail-yard at Boston 
(Leverett Street) at twenty-five minutes before ten o'clock, A.M. 
This is the second execution in Boston within a very few years ; 
and it is a terrible sin — it seems to me — thus to take the life 
of a man completely in our power. The laws deal equally with 
the poor negro and the well-educated and respectable professor ; 
but I think it cannot be long that we shall continue thus to kill 
men for killing man. 

PRISONS. 

To Charles M. Ellis. 
West Roxbury, Saturday Night, June, 1846. 
My dear Charles, — I want to trouble you again a few 
minutes. Can you get for me a copy of the last June Report of 
the Committee on the City Prisons, Houses of Correction, &c. ? 
Then, too, can you find out how many persons from Boston are 
sent to the State Prison from June 9, 1845, t0 J une 9> 1846, and 
the term of their sentences ? I want to ascertain this matter 
very much. Who can tell me the proportion of seco?id-comers 



364 THEODORE PARKER. 

in the State Prison ? You will see the use I mean to make of 
this information when I print the sermon " Of the Perishing 
Classes in Boston." 

Yours truly but hastily, 

Theo. Parker. 

That sermon " Of the Perishing Classes " had the meat 
of many reports in it, and the soul of a deep and wise 
humanity. It should be added, that, while denouncing 
heartily the prison system as barbarous and idiotic, he was 
not enthusiastic over the substitutes which were proposed 
for it When the community glorified the Reform School 
at Westborough, Mass., he doubted. "The school at West- 
borough is a school of crime," he said. He expressed him- 
self not sorry to hear that it was burned. This was quite 
in keeping with his philosophy of reform. The substitu- 
tion of a plausible evil for an undisguised evil gave him 
no consolation. The education of humanity was the car- 
dinal point ; and that was a deep matter, which good 
men might blunder about as well as bad men. Amiability 
did not excuse folly. 

WOMAN. 

Under this caption I can only hint in general terms at 
Mr. Parker's opinions on some of the deep questions which 
most can ask, and few can answer, and none yet can decide, 
affecting the happiness and well-being of women. That he 
estimated the native genius of woman as highly as any, 
ranked her as loftily in the order of humanity, expected as 
much from her, demanded for her as complete an enfran- 
chisement and as thorough an education, recognized as 
unqualifiedly her claim to social and civil privileges, anti- 
cipated as glorious results from her participation in the 
active concerns of life, need hardly be said. Evidence 
could be collected, if need were, from published and 
unpublished sermons ; but here as elsewhere the actual 



THE REFORMER. 365 

condition of things engaged him more than the possible 
condition at a future day. He allowed his Utopias to 
float in the clouds, and occupied himself with digging for 
foundations on which they could securely stand. 

The problem of prostitution interested him much from 
the earliest day. 

Boston, April 24, 1852. 
Dear Higginson, — I send you our circular, which will 
interest your kind heart. Hope to see you soon. 

Yours truly, T. P. 

The circular asked co-operation in the work of an asso- 
ciation that aimed to protect girls whom idleness and 
vagrant habits led into temptation, and made offenders 
against the laws. Boys were provided for in parallel 
emergencies. He wanted a similar care bestowed on girls, 
— to take charge of them before they became offend- 
ers 1 to take possession of such as were arraigned for 
crimes ; to furnish a temporary home for them in the city, 
instruction in the means of gaining a living, and places in 
the country towns of New England for such as needed 
them. Rev. John T. Sargent consented to act as agent of 
the association in the courts and elsewhere, becoming bail 
for such as he thought deserving. Among the names sub- 
scribed to the project were Edmund Jackson, Theodore 
Parker, Hannah Stevenson, and Wendell Phillips. 

On a Sunday afternoon in 1854 he is writing to a compa- 
ny of philanthropists to come and devise means to help the 
poor girls in the streets of Boston who were on the way to 
the brothel. He is sick too ; tormented with rheumatism j 
laid prone on the sofa. The good work done in New 
York by Charles Loring Brace interested him exceedingly, 
especially as it bore on the moral condition of exposed 
girls. He took at least one journey to New York on pur- 
pose to consult with Mr. Brace on his methods and 
results ) and always, when in his neighborhood, made 
31* 



366 THEODORE PARKER. 

a point of collecting information from that valuable 
source. 

The misery incident to thoughtless marriages oppressed 
him sorely ; and he spoke of them in terms that would give 
aid and comfort to some modern enemies of the marriage 
institution, if taken in their bald, literal sense, apart from 
the earnest moral feeling that lifted all his opinions above 
the range of low-minded discussion. The following frank 
letter to Miss Stevenson will answer as well as many notes 
from the journal to convey one phase of his feeling on this 
vexed theme : — 

West Newton, August, 1852, 
Fourth Vacation Day. 

Dear Hannah, — Thank you for the nice letter which 
came Tuesday fur mir selbst allein. There is nothing in it 
which I dissent from. The other which I wrote contained some 
exaggeration, and did not fully represent my own view of the 
matter. I had been talking with one who — and his wife 
equally — suffered intensely from a mismarriage, and took rather 
his view of the matter than my own : at least, the letter partook 
of the exaggeration of his statement. 

About half the people in the world want a husband or a 
wife for the utility of the thing, for the various modes of 
marketable utility. The partner is an instrument, a medium 
for the accomplishment of various purposes. The highest of 
these is the attaimnent of respectability. The partner is a 
medium of respectability. The sufferings of these persons 
are only like the pain of an ill-fitting shoe, or the mortification 
of a bad bargain, or the discomfort of a hard bed. I have not 
much feeling for these persons in their connubial griefs. 

But when a noble person marries for the noble end, and 
then finds it is no marriage, there is a horrible suffering ; and all 
sorts of abnormalities of conduct, internal and external, may be 
expected to take place. The very eminence of morality in New 
England intensifies the suffering ; for elsewhere the connubial 
Abschweifungen are tolerated, and the disappointed persons 
find some relief, at least abatement, for their long-continued 
aflliction. 



THE REFORMER. 367 

Still I must think that the connubial organization is extreme- 
ly imperfect, and does great injustice on all sides. There is the 
gross licentiousness of young men, continued by some through 
all their lives ; then the unnatural and involuntary celibacy of 
so many women, not to speak of conduct that sends many 
to the madhouse : all of this is unnatural, is against nature, 
and only exists in consequence of the general tyranny which 
has been so long exercised by the bigger brain over the smaller. 
There is a radical defect in our organization of the family. In 
most countries, polygamy is a rough remedy against the invol- 
untary celibacy of women. Among the Catholics, monastic 
establishments are an organization of celibacy, the voluntary 
or the involuntary. The celibacy is often, with the Catholic 
women, against their consent. The organization is voluntary. 
(A nun is an old maid organized.) In Spain there are now in 
the several conventual establishments six thousand nuns ; in 
Boston five thousand and fifteen widows, and how many nuns 
unorganized, involuntary nuns, nuns of the orders of neces- 
sity ! Now, there will always be noble women who refuse 
marriage, not from lack of affection or lack of passion, but for 
other reasons and considerations ; and they will have their joy 
and delight. There will always be unlucky marriages. There 
is always a margin of miscarriage in all human affairs ; but this 
mighty amount of involuntary celibacy on the part of women, 
and its consequent suffering, will gradually disappear fast as 
the idea of her equality obtains footing. When woman has the 
same rights of mind, body, and estate, recognized by all, that 
man has, then you will not find five thousand and fifteen widows 
in Boston, and three hundred and seventy-six widowers. 

Dear old ladye, good-by ! 

From the Journal. 

" From psychological considerations, I should think that 
monogamy was the natural law of human nature. I find the 
same thing shown in the equality of the sexes ; and the same 
conclusion is confirmed by history. E.g., among the negro 
slaves there is no marriage-form ; the whole is voluntary : 
but separations almost never take place. The same is true 
of the North -American Indians, — e.g., the O sages, who know 



368 THEODORE PARKER. 

nothing of this, — though there is no law or custom to pre- 
vent it. If the whole were more free in social life, I doubt not 
that marriage would be happier, and divorces more rare. 
What a deal of prudery is there about the matter here in New 
England ! 

" All marriages that I have ever known, or almost all, 
are fragmentary. If I read aright, a perfect and entire mar- 
riage can only take place between equals, or, at least, equiva- 
lents. Now, it frequently happens that the parties are 
vastly unequal, one by no means the equivalent of the other. 
Hence they are married but partially, and touch only in one 
point or so. I know a man whose wife has no passion : senti- 
ment enough ; but the passional part of marriage is hateful to 
her. In this point, then, the man is not married. I know 
many where in soul there is no equivalent ; and in soul the man 
is not married. So with intellect, affection, benevolence, &c. 
A man not mated, or a woman not mated, seeks sorrowing the 
other half, and wanders up and down without rest. Most men 
are married only in their philoprogenitiveness or their acquisi- 
tiveness, perhaps in their amativeness. Marriage is mainly a 
discipline to most men : to few is it mainly an enjoyment. A 
man's courtship often begins after his marriage ; and he tries to 
piece out a wife, — a little here, and a little there. With women 
the case is worse still. To a sluggish nature this is a slight 
thing : he wants to sleep, and sleeps. But to a great active 
soul it must be a terrible curse. A man marries a wife far 
superior to himself. He cannot carry her. She wants sym- 
pathy in the unsupported part, and she must have it. Suppose 
she does not have it : that part of her nature perishes, and 
corrupts the rest. If she does have it, then, in that point, her 
legal husband is not her true one. So it goes." 

This is the staple. It is shrewd and commonsensical, 
but has not the great moral lift that characterizes Mr. 
Parker's mind. The sorrow and perplexity are too much 
for him. 

Certain aspects of this subject are well treated in 
letters to Robert White of New York, printed in full by 
Mr. Weiss. They are interesting, but add little to the 



THE REFORMER. 369 

hints already given. The discussion is thorough on the 
lower planes ; but it does not ascend to the higher. The 
spiritual element is somehow wanting. The redeeming 
feature all through is the faith in God and man, and the 
brave trust that the race will work its way through the 
slough to better states. 

" This great matter (of divorce)," he wrote to Miss Cobbe in 
1859, " I have not touched, for two reasons : 1st, I don't feel 
quite competent to deal with it, and perhaps never shall, even 
if I live ; and, 2d, things are going on very well without my 
interference, — perhaps better without it. All the progressive 
States of America are changing their laws of divorce ; and in 
New England they have altered much in fifty, even in twenty 
years. The instinct and reflection of the people demand a 
change. In the new Western States the alterations are very 
great and rapid. In private I do not share the opinions attrib- 
uted to me, and have painfully spent much time in attempting 
to reconcile married people who at first sought a divorce. Yet, 
out of many trials, I remember but one where the attempt was 
at all successful. I have small sympathy with men and women 
who would either make or break a marriage lightly. But I do 
not think material adultery is the only breach of marriage. I 
think I once petitioned the Massachusetts Legislature to make 
habitual drunkenness a ground for divorce, if the aggrieved 
party desired it. But proper notions of marriage, and so of 
divorce, can only come as the result of a slow but thorough 
revolution in the idea of woman. At present, all is chaotic in 
the relation between her and man : hence the ghastly evils of 
involuntary celibacy, of unnatural marriage, and of that dreadful 
and many-formed vice which disgraces our civilization. But we 
shall gradually outgrow this feudalism of woman." 

The problem of woman suffrage was another which Mr. 
Parker did not work out. The agitation had not come 
up in his day as it has since ; so that the consideration of 
it was speculative, and therefore lacked vitality. On gen- 
eral principles, he was doubtless disposed to favor the 
reform. Were he alive to-day, he would probably be one 



370 THEODORE PARKER. 

of its leaders. He evidently wished to encourage in 
others faith in. the capabilities, in all noble directions, of 
woman ; and in conversation occasionally spoke with 
enthusiasm of the part they would perform in situations 
now held exclusively by men. But his own faith was a 
little at the mercy of moods, and of obvious facts which 
met his eye from day to day. I find the following obser- 
vation in the journal of 1859 : — 

" It is surprising to notice the odds between the talk of men 
and women, who bear the same relation to mankind and to 
humankind. The women talk so much more on trifles ; and, 
when they treat important matters, it is in a comparatively 
poor and narrow manner. Is t]ps the effect of ill habits and 
defective education ? or does it come from a radical difference 
in the male and female nature ? For some months past I have 
sat in the midst of companies, and heard the talk, with no power 
to join in it, such is the condition of my voice ; and have 
thereby had a better opportunity to observe than ever before. 
I have been struck with the difference. If half the American 
Senate were women, who should bear the same relation to their 
female constituents as the men to the male, I think half (per- 
haps more than half) of the debates would be of a strange char- 
acter." 

I have no intention, in quoting this passage, to commit 
Mr. Parker against the movement in favor of woman 
suffrage, — many ardent friends of that movement are as 
alive as he seems to have been to a multitude of practical 
difficulties associated with it, — but merely to exhibit fairly 
his position, or want of position, on the subject. In this, 
as in other cases, his faith in the principle would have 
proved more than a match for his doubts respecting de- 
tails of operation. His confidence in the regenerating 
power of liberty, or of humanity in a condition of liberty, 
was too entire, and his trust in the future too sincere, to 
be daunted or dashed by difficulties incidental, perhaps, to 
a transient phase of social progress. Certain it is that 



THE REFORMER. 371 

women would have always found in him a champion 
pledged to defend every one of their natural rights, and 
loyal to claim every human privilege. He would always 
have been more than a partisan, but never less than a 
friend. 

SPIRITUALISM. 

This, too, is to be ranked among the reforms ; for a 
reform indeed it is, and, as such, was honestly recognized 
by the candid mind which tried to reckon all movements 
at their true value. Again and again Parker admitted its 
worth as an agent in emancipating the human mind. As 
early as 1854 I find mention of the subject in a letter 
written to Albert Sanford. His intellect was constitu- 
tionally averse, some will say constitutionally powerless,, 
to grapple with matters that bordered on the supernatural ; 
and familiar practical objections occurred to him with 
force. The ludicrous side was ever obvious. The spirits 
were never at home when he called ; and they never 
pulled his latch-string, though it always hung out. It was 
not his way to seek an extramundane cause, if a mundane 
cause could be conjectured ; and, if none could be, his 
demand that the extramundane cause should justify itself 
intellectually, inclined him rather to rest in ignorance 
than to repose in faith. In a word, he never obtained 
satisfaction. Yet he blamed the scientific men, Agassiz 
among them, for their unfair methods of investigating the 
phenomena ; rebuked the prigs who turned up their noses 
at the idea of investigating the subject at all.; and took 
faithful measure of the unbelief in immortality which 
pronounced communication between the visible and in- 
visible worlds impossible. He admitted to his friend 
Prof. Desor that Spiritualism does two good things : 1st, It 
knocks the nonsense of the popular theology to pieces, 
and so does a negative service j 2d, It leads cold, hard, 
materialistic men to a recognition of what is really 



372 THEODORE PARKER. 

spiritual in their nature, and so does a positive 
good. 

"In 1856," he writes in the journal, "it seems more likely 
that Spiritualism will become the religion of America than in 
156 that Christianity would be the religion of the Roman 
empire, or in 8$6 that Mohammedanism would be that of the 
Arabian populations. 1st, It has more evidence for its won- 
ders than any historic form of religion hitherto. 2d, It is 
thoroughly democratic, with no hierarchy, but inspiration open 
to all. 3d. It is no fixed fact, has no fiunctwn stans, but is a 
punctum fluens; not a finality, but shows a great vista for the 
future. 4th, It admits all the truths of religion and morality 
in all the world sects." 

Of Swedenborg, the high priest of Spiritualism, Mr. 
Parker had not an adoring appreciation. " Swedenborg 
has had the fate to be worshipped as a half-god on the 
one side, and on the other to be despised and laughed at. 
It seems to me that he was a man of genius, of wide 
learning, of deep and genuine piety ; but he had an ab- 
normal, queer sort of mind, — dreamy, dozy, clairvoyant, 
Andrew Jackson Davisy; and, besides, he loved opium 
and strong coffee, and wrote under the influence of those 
drugs. A wise man may get many nice bites out of him, 
and be the wiser for such eating; but if he swallows 
Swedenborg whole, as the fashion is with his followers, — 
why, it lies hard on the stomach, and the man has a night- 
mare on him' all his natural life, and talks about the 
1 Word ' and the ' Spirit,' 'correspondences,' &c. Yet the 
Swedenborgians have a calm and religious beauty in their 
lives which is much to be admired." 

In August, 1838, after reading a Life of Swedenborg, — 
probably Hobart's, the first published biography in Eng- 
lish (Boston, 183 1), — he makes the following note in the 
journal : — . 

" It seems written with the most honest intentions, but is not 
satisfactory to me farther than this : it shows he was a very 



THE REFORMER. 373 

remarkable man. As to his wonderful deeds, I have no ante- 
cedent objection to them ; though the evidence is not always 
sufficient to establish their actuality. If actual, they are of no 
value to my mind as proof of spiritual inspiration. I cannot 
believe in his interpretations of the Scriptures, if he were to 
move mountains. 

" There is a little unfairness in giving part of the testimony 
of Kant, without giving the part against the credibility of Swe- 



denborg." 



Parker was, then, acquainted with Swedenborg's story 
before reading this book. It would have been singular 
indeed had so extraordinary an intellectual phenomenon 
escaped him. 

To effect a theological reform Parker conceived to be 
his mission. To this the cast of his mind and his pas- 
sion for books inclined him. He was a student and a 
thinker, endowed with a prodigious capacity for receiving 
the thoughts of others, and with a singular power of 
simplifying them in statement. Though not a philosopher 
in the technical meaning of the word, he had a vigorous 
grasp on the moral bearing of ideas, which qualified him 
to be a leader in the general philosophic world. He 
treated ideas as if they were living powers, and watched 
their working with the intense interest of a spectator at 
a gladiatorial show, or, to speak more accurately, with the 
absorbing enthusiasm of a master of the games. His 
faith in the regenerating force of a correct theology was 
vital. He believed with all his heart, that if the theology 
of the Romanist and Protestant — in other words, of the 
" Christian " churches — could be destroyed, and juster 
views of God, and of man's relations to God, could be 
substituted for it, society would feel the change in all its 
departments, from government affairs to domestic service : 
every wrong would be righted, every mischief removed, 
every mistake corrected, every sorrow taken away. His 
3 2 



374 THEODORE PARKER. 

interest, therefore, in social reforms, like those mentioned 
above, was at first incidental to his interest in theology : 
it illustrated the bearings of his theological idea ; it ex- 
hibited in concrete form the drift of his speculative spirit \ 
it was an application of his scheme of the universe to the 
separate concerns of the community. 
' Thus far, therefore, though his sentiments were those of 
a reformer, Parker, in the ordinary sense of the word, was 
not a political reformer. He was not a reformer as Gar- 
rison was, or Phillips ; as Wilberforce was, or Clarkson, or 
George Thompson, or John Howard, — men who gave them- 
selves to a particular cause, consecrated time and means 
and talents to it, fought for it, made sacrifices for it, were 
ready to die for it. The interest he felt in temperance, 
peace, education, the abolition of the gallows, the rescue 
of imperilled girls, did not take him from his study, force 
him into daily consort with men of affairs, make him dis- 
continue or countermand his orders for foreign books, 
keep him on his feet day and night, fill his house with 
children of misery, his hours with efforts to relieve suffer- 
ing and thwart iniquity, his heart with anxieties for the 
destiny of his country. The time for this had not come ; 
but it was coming. When it came, it found him ready. 
His reform of theology meant, at bottom, reform of 
society ; and, if society raised the loudest cry, his ear was 
open to hear it. 

The following sonnet, copied from the journal of 1849, 
expresses the spirit in which he tried to work : — 

" Father, I will not ask for wealth or fame, 
Though once they would have joyed my carnal sense : 
I shudder not to bear a hated name, 
Wanting all wealth, myself my sole defence. 
But give me, Lord, eyes to behold the truth ; 
A seeing sense that knows the eternal right ; 
A heart with pity filled, and gentlest ruth ; 
A manly faith that makes all darkness light :• 



THE REFORMER. 375 

Give me the power to labor for mankind ; 
Make me the mouth of such as cannot speak ; 
Eyes let me be to groping men and blind ; 
A conscience to the base ; and to the weak 
Let me be hands and feet ; and to the foolish, mind ; 
And lead still further on such as thy kingdom seek." 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 



Theodore Parker never was, never could have been, 
indifferent to slavery as an inhuman system. His atten- 
tion was early fixed on it as a blunder in economics, and 
a blot on American institutions. A sermon on slavery, 
preached in 1841, and again in 1843, was published. In 
1842 he wrote to a friend, " Perhaps you feel a stronger 
interest than I do in the welfare of Latimer " (a fugitive 
slave, whose examination was pending, and in whose be- 
half the abolitionists had asked public intercession from 
divines), "and of the slaves in general. It must be a 
very strong one if it is so. But I will not boast of my 
zeal." It was not, however, till 1845, when slavery be- 
came prominent in the national politics, and menaced 
republican government with overthrow, when men began 
to talk of the "slave power," that his concern in the 
matter became engrossing. That year finds him busy 
with statistics on the general subject. He writes to 
the historian Michelet for information in regard to a 
work alluded to by him, as he is preparing an essay on 
slavery in the Roman empire. The same year he col- 
lects facts on slavery in the United States, its introduc- 
tion and domestication there. The scheme of the " Letter 
to the Citizens of the United States," published in Decem- 
ber, 1847, i s drawn up at this time in rough form j books 
are noted, and materials gathered from all sources, famil- 
376 . 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 377 

iar and remote. The "Letter," when finished, was a 
model of terse composition, throbbing with an earnest- 
ness as deep as Garrison's, and animated by a wisdom as 
calm as Channing's. Slavery had become the one prac- 
tical question in America, involving all others. It called 
for practical measures : the practical man rallied all his 
forces to meet it. In 1848 it was suggested to him that 
political life would give him a better position than the 
pulpit. In one of his despondent moods he writes thus 
in the journal : — 

"May 19. — Several persons of late, as well as formerly, 
have talked to me about going to Congress as representative 
or senator. To which there are two objections. 1. Nobody 
would send me. I don't believe any town in Massachusetts 
would give me any post above that of hog-reeve ; and I don't 
feel competent for that office : a man in spectacles could not 
well run after swine. 2. Politics are not my vocation, nor yet 
my desire. I aim to labor for ideas, to set men a-thinking. 
I feel as if born for a pulpit, if for any thing. If I could be 
well, — well enough to work, to do a man's duty, — I should be 
glad. Yet that is not a thing I ever mention in my prayers. I 
am content, yes, content, to pay the price of violating the laws 
of the body in struggling for an education ; though I knew not 
what I did." 

In a braver mood he saw the advantage of his pro- 
fessional position. He was responsible to nobody, and 
nobody to him : he was his own master ; owned his own 
mill ; built his own dam ; could grind as much and as little 
as he liked. He could speak his own word, in his own 
way, and in his own time ; was the servant of no party, 
the slave of no machine. He could excite the sentiment 
and supply the idea for the political reformer to work up 
for his uses. But he believed in politics, too, as the 
instituted agency for carrying ideas into effect. He did 
not stand outside of politics, as the abolitionists did : 
rather he stood above them, as one who would make them 
3 2 * 



378 THEODORE PARKER. 

serve his turn. He voted; encouraged voting; counted 
the actual and reckoned the possible votes ; interested 
himself in the candidates to be voted for ; stirred up the 
enthusiasm of constituencies ; marshalled his armies of 
ballots as a general his myrmidons; all the time ringing 
out his prophetic call to conscience, and impressing on 
men the majesty of the eternal law. No disabling scru- 
ples respecting the constitutional guaranties of slavery 
restrained him on the one side ; no ethnological doubts 
respecting the negro's rank in mankind restrained him 
on the other. He saw democratic institutions — the dream 
of history, the hope of humanity — menaced with destruc- 
tion ; and he rushed to the rescue, snatching up the most 
effective weapons that lay near his hand. 

A brief sketch of the episodes in the conflict, their 
dates and characteristic features at least, is necessary to 
explain his course. The events have passed into history ; 
and, even if they had not, are important here only as 
illustrating the man, his methods and his spirit. 

The annexation of Texas — the first step, as he fore- 
saw, and as it proved, in the march of the slave power 
towards its goal, the supreme control of the American 
government — was effected in 1845. By this measure a 
territory as large as France was added as a slave State to 
the Union. 

The war with Mexico — the first consequence of the 
annexation of Texas — followed in 1846, and was advo- 
cated by the same party that carried through the former 
measure. The issue of the war increased the reputation 
of the party, and greatly raised the confidence of the 
slave power. 

The election of Gen. Taylor to the presidency in 1848 
confirmed the gains already made, and favored new 
plots for the feudal usurpation. In 1850 the famous 
Fugitive-slave Bill was passed, which opened the whole 
North as a hunting-ground for Southern masters whose 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 379 

slaves had escaped into the Middle and New-England 
States. Of this bill Daniel Webster was the great Whig 
supporter. He carried with him the wealth, eminence, 
and social respectability, of Massachusetts. 

The administration of Franklin Pierce gave to the con- 
spirators an opportunity to consolidate their plans, which 
they diligently made use of, and so openly, that the public 
sentiment of the North was at last aroused to a sense of 
the danger. 

On the 15th of May, 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 
which had passed the Senate on the 4th, passed the 
House of Representatives in spite of vigorous opposition 
from Northern men ; and a new episode in the course of 
events was opened. Neither Territory having the popula- 
tion required for admission as a State, both made haste to 
stock them with people after their own kind. The " bor- 
der ruffians " poured in from Missouri, and took violent 
possession of the strategic points. The emigration soci- 
eties formed their organizations in the free States, and 
pushed their bands of pioneers across the Western prairies, 
fully equipped with implements of civilization, and armed 
with rifles to defend them. The suppressed war broke 
out in the new Territories with fury. Outrages of every 
kind made existence there tolerable to none but com- 
batants. Murders, accompanied by acts of deep atrocity, 
were of daily occurrence. There was no law, no restraint 
of custom, no respect for property or person. Re-enforce- 
ments were continually coming in to the aid of either 
party ; and, as numbers increased, difficulties accumulated. 
The condition of things was one of simple anarchy : men 
went armed ; houses were prepared for assault j guards 
were stationed as in time of war. Nobody was safe. 

Prominent among the figures that loomed up in this 
dreadful time was that of John Brown, the stern man of 
grim puritanical cast, whose deed of sacrifice closed one 
epoch of history. 



380 THEODORE PARKER. 

In May, 1856, Charles Sumner delivered in the Senate 
his famous speech, " The Crime against Kansas," which 
lashed the proslavery party to frenzy, and brought upon 
him a brutal assault, on the 21st, by Preston Brooks. 
The Massachusetts senator dragged his outraged form 
from Washington to Boston, touching all hearts with pity, 
filling all souls with indignation, and swelling the party 
which had determined that the slave power should lose 
the next battle and be crushed. 

But it Was not. The battle was fiercely fought between 
John Charles Fremont and James Buchanan. Buchanan 
won; and the dominion of evil was strengthened for 
another term. The tide was not turned till i860, when 
the success of Abraham Lincoln checked the slavehold- 
ers' advance, but too late for a peaceful solution of the 
problem. The civil war punished the South for its in- 
iquity, and the North for its complicity. 

At every crisis of this long conflict, from the first 
moment till near its close, Theodore Parker made himself 
felt. His voice was the loudest ; his presence was ubiqui- 
tous ; his action was prompt. He enlisted for the war, 
and brought all his forces with him. The importation of 
books slackened; the folios were dropped; purse and 
brain were devoted to the one duty of meeting the public 
emergency. With astonishing assiduity he went through 
the Northern States, enlightening and rousing the people 
with ponderous -lectures that were orations, sermons, argu- 
ments, historical disquisitions, harangues, all in one. 
His lecturing-field touched the Southern border, and 
once, at least, lapped over. Thomas Garrett, the famous 
station - master of the " Underground Railroad," pro- 
posed to him to lecture in Wilmington, Del. (a place 
where the proslavery feeling was particularly acrid) ; tell- 
ing him at the same time that the undertaking was dan- 
gerous ; that he would be exposed to insult, and perhaps 
to personal violence. The peril was a temptation ; and 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 381 

the invitation was accepted with alacrity. A special lec- 
ture was prepared for the occasion. On his arrival, posters 
were out on the walls, of an alarming nature. The hall 
was filled with excited people ; scowling faces confronted 
him as he entered ; there were whispers of tar and feath- 
ers in the back-yard. Parker took the stand, and, as 
quietly as if he were in Music Hall, announced his 
theme : " Rhode Island and Delaware, the Two Smallest 
States in the Union." He began by drawing a picture of 
the two States as regarded natural advantages, — of posi- 
tion, climate, resources, historical and political antece- 
dents, — all so conspicuously in favor of Delaware, that the 
audience was delighted. Having thus sketched the States 
as they ought to be, he drew another picture, represent- 
ing them as they were, — Delaware poor, unenterpris- 
ing, decadent; Rhode Island vigorous, rich, advancing. 
Having set the two pictures face to face, the question 
was raised and answered, " What explains these unex- 
pected results ? " With careful array of facts and figures, 
it was shown how, in the one case, slavery had defeated the 
promise of Nature \ and how, in the other case, freedom 
had defeated Nature's menace. The lecture was long, 
serious, and close • but its vast ability, its evident candor, 
and its unimpassioned tone, kept the audience attentive to 
the end, and left them deeply impressed. A handsome 
substitute for the tar-barrel was a vote of thanks. Par- 
ker's earnestness disarmed the rancor of those who would 
listen to him. He spoke as a teacher, not as a partisan. 
His aim was truth, not victory. 

His pulpit rang from Sunday to Sunday with the tones 
of a Hebrew prophet. He kept his eye on every public 
man, sounded his trumpet-call in the ears of the lagging, 
admonished the hesitating, warned the faltering, praised 
the valiant, instructed the ignorant, denounced the faith- 
less, respecting no persons, but aiming his blows where 
his blows would fall heaviest. The history of those dozen 



382 THEODORE PARKER. 

years cannot be written in this volume : nor need it 
be ; for it is written in books easily accessible ; in none 
more truthfully or vividly than in those of Theodore Par- 
ker himself. We are studying now Parker's character, for 
the sake of its influence on other characters to be trained 
for other emergencies. Let us try to understand how he 
worked. 

The following letter to George Bancroft shows him 
willing, if necessary, to break friendship, rather than be 
faithless to his own soul : — 

West Roxbury, Nov. i8, 1845. 

Dear Sir, — I was once in friendly intercourse with the 
historian of the United States ; and the remembrance of that 
emboldens me to write the following letter to an important 
member of the cabinet council, which is the actual government 
of the United States. Once you wrote the history of other 
men's achievements ; I need not say, a noble history of noble 
men and noble deeds : now you are to enact a history, not to 
write one; to create materials for the future historian. You 
can add new laurels to such as- you have already won, acquir- 
ing the imperishable renown of noble words, and deeds as noble ; 
or add another to the list of men whose deeds are words, and 
words only. I look to you for the noble deeds. I know that 
most of your political opponents do not expect that ; I know 
that some of your political friends expect it no more : but I 
have obstinately said to both, that I expected the historian of 
great worth to show a worth fit to be as greatly described. 
But to come to the point. It is rumored about in this neigh- 
borhood, it is the talk in State Street, that you, with others in 
place, are desirous of a war with England, — a war, too, on ac- 
count of that wretched business of Oregon. 

Now, I cannot believe the talk of State Street to that effect ; 
nor can I believe, spite of " The Union " and its editorials, that 
the two leading nations of the world are to plunge into a war out 
of which both are to rise losers. I will say with Cicero, that 
there never was a just war or an unjust peace. I write to beg of 
you — if the thought of war, or even the thought of that thought, 
enters into the councils of the government — to consider that pos- 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 383 

terity, which awards fame or disgrace to men, will damn into 
deep infamy that government which allows a war to take place 
in the middle of the nineteenth century. Yes, posterity will 
pass a damning sentence on the men who even tampered with 
the war-spirit so madly active in these half-brutal men who 
swarm in our parties. I say, too, that this vengeance will fall 
heaviest on you, and that deservedly. You know at what cost 
war is waged. I don't speak of treasure, not even of blood, 
but of the confusion it brings into the minds, and hearts too, of 
men. You know, from the bloody page of history, how war in 
the latter ages has arrested the progress of man. A war of but 
a single year between England and the United States, I seriously 
believe, would retard the progress of man full half a century. I 
know some men would win a reputation for a few months in the 
mouths of the vulgar ; but I know, and you know, that such 
fame is real infamy, and will soon appear such even to those 
men that are the food for powder. 

There is yet another matter on which I feel constrained to 
speak : that is the admission of Texas as a slave State. As a 
member of the cabinet, you must have an influence on this mat- 
ter. As an historian, you know that slavery was the corruption 
of Greece and the undoing of Rome. As a philosopher, you 
know that slavery is supported only by the worst passions of 
man ; that it is this day the infamy of the whole nation ; that 
it is the curse of the very South, which clamors for it with such 
foolish speech ; and is the real cause of all the ill feeling between 
the South and the North ; yes, the drug of an evil prophet 
thrust into the mouth of that fair statue our fathers set up to 
the Genius of Freedom, — a drug which will rend their work 
into fragments and ruins. Now I ask if you, George Bancroft, 
the historian of freedom, are willing to aid in bringing into this 
republic that province which has restored slavery after poor 
Mexico had abolished it. You told me once you thought your 
lecture on Roman slavery was the best thing you ever wrote. 
I think few men place you higher as an author than I have 
done ; but I confess that I know no passage of your writings 
that surpasses your thoughts on Roman slavery. 

Now, with that before the eye, and fresh in remembrance, if 
you can allow the introduction of Texas as a slave State at all, 
still more with that infamous constitution it has adopted; if 



384 THEODORE PARKER. 

you can do that, — why, what is your lecture on Roman slavery, 
what your whole history of freedom, but a piece of brilliant 
declamation ? I love noble words as well as you ; but I love 
deeds worthy of noble words, — love them far better. I prize lit- 
erary reputation ; I don't mean that I aspire to it, only that I 
place a great author very high in the scale of man : but I 
would rather posterity should say of me, that, holding a place 
in the government of the United States, I opposed that govern- 
ment in its scheme of annexing a slave territory big as the 
kingdom of France, and, in consequence of that opposition, 
gave up my place in the cabinet sooner than be partner to a 
horrid wrong, — I say I would rather have posterity tell that of 
me than say I wrote the history of the United States better 
than mortal ever wrote before. You will say I am but a poor 
country minister, with no voice in the Commonwealth, and no 
knowledge of political affairs. All that is true : none know it 
better than I know it. But I do know what is right by the ever- 
lasting law of God j and I do know that the admission of Texas is 
wrong by these laws. I beg you in this matter not to consult 
with that mushroom popularity which is gained without merit, 
and lost without crime ; but to act worthy of a philosopher j of a 
man enriched by the wisdom of the past, and full of the culture 
of a Christian's noble life. If you do so, future generations, 
ay, the present generation too, will crown your head with 
the noblest of honors, — the applause bestowed by good men 
on great and noble deeds. If you do it not, if you falsify your 
own bravest words, and allow the area of slavery to be 
extended, thus to be perpetuated, while you lift up no word of 
manly remonstrance, how can the world help regarding you 
as a mere declaimer, a poor sophist, who had the art to cheat 
.the vulgar with fine words, and deceive the many lovers of 
freedom by brilliant pretensions, but was himself words and pre- 
tensions, nothing more ? If you falsify your own writings, what 
can you say to me if I burn your books, and then say, "He and 
his books are the sa?ne thing, — fine-sounding words, but at 

LAST ASHES AND DUST " ? 

Act only as you have written, and your reputation is secure : 
a great deal more than that, — you will have done a man's deeds. 
Men will write on your tomb, " Par officio atque officium 
maximum." That would be a nobler, epitaph than this : "Levis 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 385 

sit terra super terrain levem; " and this is the inscription 
which justice writes on many a tomb. 

What shall I say at the end of such a letter as this ? Why, 
this only, — that it is the strongest proof of friendship and 
esteem that I could show any man. If you are offended, I 
shall be sorry for it : not sony that I have written ; not sorry 
that I expected deeds commensurate with your words ; sorry 
only that I do not find them. But I will trouble you no more, 
except to say I hope you will be as jealous' of your own real 
honor as I have been ; and to add, that, with many good hopes 
for your welfare and usefulness, I am 

Most heartily your friend, 

Theo. Parker. 

The dead earnestness comes out again thus : Parker 
had made a speech at a public meeting, which some of 
his best friends found fault with, on the ground, it would 
seem, that it was extreme in statement, and bordering on 
vulgarity in tone. Thus he replies : — 

To Miss Stevenson. 

West Roxbury, Sept. 30, 1846. 
My dear Hannah, — I wrote the within letter immediately 
on reading yours. Since then, two days have passed ; and I 
have thought the matter over a little more carefully ; have 
looked at it impersonally as a matter of history. It seems 
quite otherwise. I am glad it is done ; sorry that some things 
I meant to say were omitted, — things that would have made no 
man laugh, but all men's blood curdle with horror to have heard, 
— things that would have rung like the blows of a battle-axe on a 
robber's doorposts. To have said just the words I then said, at 
that time, may do me no honor : I looked for none, want none. It 
may cover me with disgrace : I care not for that. I am glad I 
said it ; glad I said it just so. I went there in a quite unusual 
mood. I was filled with indignation at the mean, base spirit (so 
it seemed to me) which led strong men to halt, to say, and not do. 
I felt that I could eat them up, and spit their pitiful ambition out 
of my mouth. I have little patience with a man who makes a 
negro's neck a stepping-stone to fame and power. I believe 
most men sincere. I never ten times in my life accused 
33 



386 THEODORE PARKER. 

anybody of hypocrisy. Then I felt there was something a 
good deal like it, not only in the Democrats and in old 
Whigs, but where I had not looked for it before. I felt like a 
Hebrew prophet towards all the doughfaces, new school as 
well as old. I am gla!d that I used low words for scurrilous 
things j glad I said the slaveholders who passed political anti- 
slavery resolutions were " jolly green." I wish I had said, that, 
though " hell was paved with resolutions," the antislavery reso- 
lutions of political parties at the North were too thin, insincere, 
and hypocritical to be allowed a permanent lodgement even there. 
I meant to say that. I wish I had said what I thought of the 
heart of the real good men of Massachusetts, and what of that 
for which the demagogues were striving. I wish I had taken 
up the Whig party, and the Democratic party too, and held up 
their words and their deeds in the light of God's law, making 
that blaze into men's minds, and be reflected upon their parties. 

If a man called that " a rowdy speech," it was because he 
had the soul of a rowdy ; and, if fifty men said so, it was 
because there were fifty so ensouled, so animated. I don't 
want to blame such critics. I must confess the fact, I have 
seldom risen so high as that night ; never thundered and light- 
ened into such an atmosphere. I did not think of such words : 
they cai?iej and I thank God for it. I hope I may never have 
to speak so again. I know I shall not often ; perhaps never. I 
know how unusual the strain was. If a man had told me 
I should speak so, I should have thought it impossible. But I 
did greater than I could counsel ; far greater than I knew. My 
caprice, my personal taste, stood in the background ; and my 
nature — the nature of mankind — and honest blood spoke in 
me, through me. I solemnly think now that I spoke more and 
better than ever before. Good judges will not tell you so ; but 
if another man had done as I, and I stood there, feeling as then 
I felt, / would tell you so. 

I like your letter much. The wounds of a friend I will bear 
thankfully, and keep forever the blessed scars thereof. Do so 
always. I don't want to wait for my foes to tell me my faults. 
You have an insight, a depth of vision, and a delicacy of soul, 
far greater than I ever met before, and can help me more than 
any other one. Don't treat me like a baby or a g-i-r-1, but like 
a man that loves you best when you beat him. 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 387 

The letter is marked " Privatissime ; " and most private 
it should have been and was kept long after it was writ- 
ten. But the awful illuminations of the war have made 
the most fiery words look pale ; and we do not wonder 
now at speech which twenty-five years ago seemed exces- 
sive, but which history has proved to have been prophetic. 
The speech which Providence has justified needs neither 
excuse nor concealment. 

Mr. Parker was fond of formulas, — short, pithy state- 
ments of principle, which could be easily remembered, 
and contained food for meditation long and close. In 
religion, he summed up his fundamental doctrine in the 
three points, — consciousness of the infinite God, of the immor- 
tal life, of the eternal right. These came over as faithfully 
in the Sunday sermons as the five points of Calvinism 
in a Presbyterian discourse. In politics, his compact 
definition of a democracy, as "government of the people, 
by the people, for the people" recurred with similar con- 
stancy. So in the antislavery war he put the whole case 
in a terse form which neither could be missed nor mis- 
conceived : 1. Freedom may put down slavery by due 
course of law ; 2. Slavery may put down freedom by due 
course of law • 3. Slavery and freedom may draw swords, 
and fight. These propositions appear in sermon, speech, 
lecture, letter, with tireless iteration. The speaker started 
from them, and came back to them continually ; develop- 
ing, illustrating, demonstrating ; accumulating facts, argu- 
ments, and appeals upon them ; using the latest events 
and the freshest incidents j but making these strong 
formulas stand up in full view all the time, so as to keep 
the grand issues steadfastly in mind. The stern repetition 
of the alternatives, accompanied as it was by keen criti- 
cism of men and measures, was an education in history 
and in ethics. 

He had an instinct for men as for principles, and 
tested them with singular insight and success. He knew 



388 THEODORE PARKER. 

a proslavery man under the cunningest disguise, and 
detected the antislavery disposition with a quick eye, 
by reason of the moral sympathy which felt farther than 
it could see. His letters reveal these swift glances into 
the characters of prominent or ambitious men, who after- 
ward, in almost every case, justified his prophecy; and 
he was ready either to fan or to tread out the spark, 
according as it promised to illumine, or threatened to con- 
sume. Let who would be faithless, he would be faithful. 
No man should falter for lack of his encouragement. 

To Hon. John G. Palfrey, Washington, B.C. 

Boston, Dec. i, 1847. 

Dear Sir, — I took the liberty the other day to send you 
the first number of " The Massachusetts Quarterly Review," in 
which you will find a scholarly and able paper on the condition 
of Greece, from the pen of Mr. Finlay. I did not intend to 
bore you with a letter ; but you force me to that yourself. I do 
not write for your sake, but my own, and to thank you most 
heartily for the honest, manly, and brave course you have pur- 
sued in regard to Mr. , unworthy son of most worthy 

sires. I hope you will excuse me for saying it to you, that I 
have looked with admiration and delight at your whole course 
of late years, especially at the manly position you have taken 
in respect of the matter of slavery. I know what conscience 
and what courage it demands to do as you have done ; but per- 
haps you do not know what conscience and courage your exam- 
ple is ministering to younger men. 

I see your vote censured in the newspapers. The censure 
shows what degree of freedom is expected of a politician in the 
Whig party as well as the Democratic. I should count such 
censure as the highest honor such men could confer. How 
could you vote for Mr. ? with what expectation of jus- 
tice to your country ? While I read the censure in the 
newspapers, I hear the warmest praise of your vote from men 
whose esteem you would value most highly. I am glad it falls 
to the lot of a man constitutionally courageous to stand up in the 
bear-garden of American politics, and show that a man may be 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 389 

in politics, and yet not out of morals. I am only sorry that I do 
not live in Middlesex to lend you my vote when needed ; though 
I have the satisfaction of having two brothers there who do so. 
I hope you will have abundant satisfaction for your conduct, 
which certainly is not less than heroic. And I remain 
Yours respectfully and gratefully, 

Theo. Parker. 

To the Same. 

June 14, 1848. 

Honored and dear Sir, — I hate to trouble so busy a 
man as you are, but will not trouble you needlessly with apolo- 
gies or a long letter. I intend, on the 25th of this month, 
to preach on the Mexican war ; and wash to know how much 
money it has cost, and how many men have perished on the 
American side in its wickedness. Of course I know the official 
documents accompanying the President's message : but if you 
can send me any more information, either by a letter or a docu- 
ment, you will help me much ; for I love to know exactly the 
truth. If the President has issued any proclamation of peace, I 
shall be glad of that, as, indeed, of a copy of the treaty and any 
thing connected with that. But I will only trouble you by say- 
ing with how much and how grateful admiration I look on you 
and your services, and how heartily I say, God bless you ! 
Respectfully and truly yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

Already Mr. Parker's energy in the antislavery cause had 
made his name familiar in all parts of the country. It had 
even reached the State of Georgia, from which came long 
letters, first of rather scornful argument, and afterwards of 
senseless vituperation, from a Mr. Flournoy. To the first 
Mr. Parker replied in the following letter, which, though 
printed by Mr. Weiss in connection with Mr. Flournoy's 
letter, is reprinted here for the benefit of those who would 
not otherwise know how patient he was in dealing with 
even irrational people. The contents of the correspond- 
ent's communication may be gathered from Mr. Parker's 
reply : the vulgarity of its tone is best left to imagination. 
33* 



390 THEODORE PARKER. 



To J. J. Flournoy, Esq., Wellington {near Athens), Ga. 

Boston, Feb. 2, 1848. 

Sir, — Your letter of January last has just come to hand ; and 
I hasten to reply. I thank you for your frankness, and will 
reply as plainly and openly as you write to me. You need not 
suppose that I have any spite against the slaveholders. I wish 
them well, not less than their slaves. I think they are doing a 
great wrong to themselves, to their slaves, and to mankind. I 
think slaveholding is a wrong in itself, and therefore a sin ; but 
I cannot say that this or that particular slaveholder is a sinner 
because he holds slaves. I know what sin is ; God only who 
is a sinner. I hope I have not said any thing harsh in my letter, 
or any thing not true. I certainly wrote with no ill feeling 
towards any one. 

You seem to think that the Old Testament and New Testa- 
ment are just alike ; that Christianity and Judaism are therefore 
the same : so, as a Christian, you appeal to the Old Testament 
for your authority to hold slaves. Now look a little at the mat- 
ter, and see the difference between the Old Testament and the 
New Testament. The Old Testament demands circumcision, 
a peculiar priesthood, the sacrifice of certain animals, the observ- 
ance of certain fast-days, full-moon days, new-moon days, the 
seventh day, and the like : it demands them all in the name of 
the Lord. Yet you do not observe any of them. Now, you say, 
I suppose, that the ritual laws of the Old Testament came from 
God, but were repealed by Christ, who also spoke by the com- 
mand of God. If that were so, then it would appear that God 
had repealed his own commands. You say God could not 
change : so I say. I do not think God ever makes laws, and 
then changes them. But if the Bible as a whole, as you say, is 
the word of God, then it is plain, that, in the New Testament, he 
takes back what he commanded in the Old Testament. In the 
Old Testament a man is allowed to put away his wife for any 
cause, or none at all ; but you know that Christ said Moses gave 
that command on account of the hardness of men's hearts. In 
Exod. xxxv. 2, 3, it is forbidden to kindle a fire on Saturday 
(sabbath), on pain of death. In Num. xv. 32, 36, it is said 
the Lord commanded a man to be stoned to death because he 
picked up sticks onSaturday. Yet I suppose you have a fire in 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 391 

your house Saturday, and Sunday too ; and perhaps would not 
think it wicked to bring in an armful of wood to make a fire on 
either of those days. Now, I do not think God changes : there- 
fore I don't believe he ever uttered those dreadful commands in 
the Old Testament. I believe that God has the attributes of 
universal justice and universal love. Doubtless you will call me 
an "infidel ; " but that makes no odds. I try to be a Christian, 
but do not begin by discarding conscience, reason, and com- 
mon sense. I think St. Paul was a Christian ; and you know 
what he says about the law — that is, the law of Moses — in 
the Old Testament. 

Now let us look at the case of the negroes. You think the 
children of Ham are under a perpetual curse, and that the 
negroes are the children of Ham. The tenth chapter of Gene- 
sis treats of the descendants of Ham ; but it does not mention 
among them a single tribe of negroes. I don't think the writer of 
that account knew even of the existence of the peculiar race of 
men that we call negroes. He mentions the Egyptians, it is true, 
and other North- African people ; but it is well known that they 
were not negroes. But even if some of the descendants of Ham 
were negroes, — though it is plain from Gen. x. they were 
not, — still that does not bring them under the curse of Noah; 
for Noah does not curse Ham and all his children, but only 
Canaan. Now, the descendants of Canaan are mentioned in 
Gen. x. 15-19. Not one of them was ever an African people : 
they all dwelt in the western part of Asia, and were the nations 
with whom the Hebrews were often at war. The Hebrews con- 
quered many of these tribes, seized their country, and often 
their persons. Many of them fied, and, I think, settled in North 
Africa : the Berbers, and in part the Moors, are of that race, . 
perhaps ; but none of them are negroes. 

But, even if the negroes were the children of Canaan, — as it is 
plain they were not, — what title could you make out to hold them 
by ? It would be thus : Four thousand years ago, Noah cursed 
Canaan ; and therefore you hold one of Canaan's children as a 
slave. Now, do you think a man has power to curse so far off as 
that ? But you will say God gave the curse : well, the Bible does 
not say so. You say Canaan and his posterity were " constitu- 
tionally unworthy ; " but you don't know that : on the contrary, 
the Sidonians, who were the descendants of Canaan, were a very 



392 THEODORE PARKER. 

illustrious people of antiquity, a good deal like the English and 
Americans at this day, and actually held great quantities of the 
Jews in slavery. 

Before you can hold a single negro under that clause in Gen. 
ix. 25, you must make out, 1. That the negro is descended 
from Canaan ; 2. That the curse was actually uttered as related ; 
3. That it denounces personal slavery for more than four thou- 
sand years ; 4. That the curse was authorized by God himself. 
Now, there is not one of these four propositions which ever has 
been made out, or ever can be. 

My dear sir, I am really surprised that an intelligent man in 
the nineteeth century, a Christian man, a republican of Georgia, 
could seriously rely a moment on such an argument as that. 
Fie on such solemn trifling about matters so important as the 
life of two or three millions of men ! For my own part, I don't 
believe the story of Noah cursing his grandson for the father's 
fault. I think it all a Jewish story got up to justify the hatred 
which the Jews felt against the Canaanites. 

I knQw Bryant's book and Faber's, but never use either now- 
a-days. Bryant had more fancy than philosophy, it always 
seemed to me. I may be as " confident " as you think me, but 
don't call myself a learned man ; though I have read about all 
the valuable works ever written on that matter of Noah's 
curse. 

You ask me if I could not propose some good to be done to 
the slaves now. Certainly : their marriage and family-rights 
might be made secure, their work easier, their food and clothing 
better ; they might not be beaten ; pains might be taken to edu- 
cate them. But all this is very little, so long as yotf keep the 
man from his natural liberty. You would not be happy if a 
slave ; would not think it right for a Christian man to hold you 
in bondage, even if one of your ancestors but fifty years ago 
had cursed you, still less if four thousand years ago. If I were 
a slaveholder, I would do this : I would say, " Come, now, you 
are free : go to work, and I will pay you what you can earn." 
I think in ten years' time you would be a richer man, and in 
two hours' time a far happier one, a more Christian one. 

Dear sir, Christianity does not consist in believing stories in 
the Old Testament about Noah's curse, and all that, but in lov- 
ing your brother as yourself, and God with your whole heart. 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 393 

Do not think that I covet your slaves. No consideration would 
induce me to become a slaveholder. / should be a sinner 
(though God grant that you are not one !) for that act. Let me 
ask you, While you take from a man his liberty, his person, do 
you not violate this couwiand, " Thou shalt not covet any thing 
that is thy neighbor's " ? Do yoji not break the Golden Rule, — 
" Whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, do ye 
even so unto them " ? 

I do not think you feel easy about this matter. What 
you say about colonization convinces me that you do not 
believe slavery is a Christian institution ; that you are not very 
angry with me, after all. Do not think that I assume any airs 
of superiority over you because I am not a slaveholder. I 
have never had that temptation. Perhaps, if born in Georgia, I 
should not have seen the evil and the sin of slavery. I may 
be blind to a thousand evils and sins at home which I commit 
myself : if so, I will thank you to point them out. I hope you 
will write me again as frankly as before. I wish I could see 
Este's book. I will look for it, and study it ; for I am working 
for the truth and the right. I have nothing to gain personally 
by the abolition of slavery ; and have, by opposing that institu- 
tion, got nothing but a bad name. I shall not count you my 
enemy, but am 

Truly your friend, 

Theo. Parker. 
J. J. Flournoy, Esq. 

To John P. Hale. 

Boston, Feb. 22, 1848. 

Dear Sir, — I hope you will pardon me for writing you this 
note. I would not trouble you with it if I did not feel obliged 
to bear my testimony to you. The slight acquaintance I had 
with you certainly would not justify me in writing this letter. 
But a spirit higher than conventional politeness compels me. 
Your recent vote in the Senate is so noble and heroic, that I 
cannot be silent. I must thank you for it : I do so in my own 
name. In the name of many who will not write the gratitude 
they feel, and in the name of mankind, I thank you. Certainly 
you have raised my opinion of the human race, when I see you 
vote in a minority of one. To stand alone in such a case is 
to stand nobly, left alone in the glory, but least alone when all 



394 THEODORE PARKER. 

alone. Such conduct is worthy of the best men, of the most 
heroic ages, of the best nations. It does not require much 
courage^o stand up at Thermopylae or Bunker Hill ; not half so 
much as to stand up in the Senate of the United States, and 
say you went there to stand alone. Accept, dear sir, my most 
hearty thanks, and believe me 

Respectfully yours, &c, 

Theo. Parker. 
Hon. John P. Hale. 

To Hon. Horace Mann. 

Boston, Nov. 14, 1849. 

My dear Sir, — It is time to go to bed ; but I cannot go to 
sleep without thanking you for the noble work you have done 
to-night. Of the magnificence and eloquence in thought and in 
speech I shall not stop to speak : they were the smaller beauties 
of your sermon. I must thank you for the magnificent morality 
you set before those young men. I think I can appreciate the 
heroism it required to do so, and speak as you have spoken, 
on such an occasion, in such a presence, where your words 
must seem personal to many ; no, not to many, but to a few. 
I know well enough, and you know much more and better than 
I, how your oration will be received by the men who are 
looked upon as models, but whose business it exposed, and 
whose littleness it scathed with terrible fire. But there were 
many true hearts, in bosoms younger than mine, which beat 
with yours, and echoed back your words. 

I have often been thankful that you are in Congress, — one 
faithful man, not a slave to the instinct for office more than a 
slave to the instinct for gold, but a representative of the in- 
stinct for justice and for truth. There is one that will long 
be grateful to you for such words as you have spoken to-night, 
and the life which made them, not words, but deeds. I beg you 
to accept my most hearty thanks, and believe me 
Truly your friend, 

Theo. Parker. 

At this stage of the conflict, Mr. Parker, so far from re- 
laxing his literary efforts, increased them in a way to tax 
the strength of a strong and leisurely man. His lecturing 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 395 

engagements were making severe drain on his time. His 
visitors were augmenting in number and urgency. The 
reading of many books went on inexorably. In addition 
to this, he undertook the co-editorship, in connection with 
R. W. Emerson and J. E; Cabot, of " The Massachusetts 
Quarterly Review," which was designed as an organ for 
the manly discussion of the momentous questions in 
science, politics, philosophy, morals, and theology, that 
interested, or were about to interest, or were worthy of 
interesting, the American people. He hoped much from 
such a journal, and tried to induce the ablest men in the 
country to engage in it. He wanted " a tremendous journal, 
with ability in its arms, and piety in its heart ; " a journal 
that "would, 1 st, Strike a salutary terror into all the ultra- 
montanists, and make them see that they did not live in 
the middle ages ; that they are not to be let alone, dream- 
ing of the garden of Eden, but are to buckle up and 
work ; 2d, Would spread abroad the ideas which now wait 
to be organized, some in letters, some in art, some in in- 
stitutions and practical life." 

To secure a suitable editor was the prime concern. 
"We don't want a man of the middle ages, but of the 
nineteenth century, for our work. I have written a letter 
to Emerson, asking him to undertake the matter. If he 
will, it will succeed. He is the better man, if he will take 
hold. He is a downright man: we never had such a jewel 
in America before. I think him worth two or three of 
Dr. Channing." Fearing that Emerson would decline, as 
he did, he wrote to Charles Sumner : " It has been de- 
cided in the council of the gods that you must undertake 
the business of conducting a new review : therefore, O 
mortal ! there is nothing for you to do but to set about the 
appointed work." But neither was Mr. Sumner obtain- 
able ; and practically the charge devolved on Mr. Parker. 

The contributors were another anxiety. He must have 
the best young men of culture and energy, if possible ; at 



396 THEODORE PARKER. 

all events, the most competent men. He solicits political 
articles from John P. Hale ; and bespeaks a special paper 
from him, for the first number, on the Annexation of 
Texas, and the Mexican War. Work is planned out far 
in advance, as was his custom. The journal has a 
schedule of contents for three or four numbers after the 
first. The first was already issued, on the ist of De- 
cember, 1847. 

No. II. 

1. Cabot vs. Mill. — Hildreth on Slavery. 

2. Ward on Art. 

3. James on Swedenborg. 

4. Female Education. 

5. Howe on Prison Discipline. — Nichols on Ireland. 

6. Wilkinson on Central New York. 

7. Literary Notices. 

No. III. 

1. Schwegler. — T. P. 

2. Exploring Expedition. 

3. Hornitz on Chinese Literature. 

4. Furness on Landor. 

5. Cabot on Wheaton. 

6. Papineau on Canada. — Desor on Squiers. — Cheap 

Postage. — Barnabas Bates. — Carlyle. 

No. IV. 

1. Baur on the Gospels. — T. P. 

2. Lieber on Humboldt (I.). 

3. Pantaleone on Pius IX. 

4. Andrew on Thirtieth Congress. 

5. Theodore Parker on Dr. Channing. 

6. George Lee on the East (Howe will write to him).— 

Mesmerism. 

No. V. 

1. Theology in Germany. — T. P. 

2. Lieber on Humboldt (II.). 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 397 

But to propose is one thing : to dispose is another. The 
writers he had in view did not all meet his expectations. 
Others came up whom he had not thought of ; but few. 
The labor of all kinds fell chiefly on himself. He did all 
that he promised, and a great deal more. In addition 
to the work laid out, he wrote a powerful article on " The 
Political Destination of America," biographical papers 
on John Quincy Adams, a careful estimate of Ralph 
Waldo Emerson's writings, and an exhaustive review 
of Mr. Prescott's histories, which stirred up the wrath 
in "select circles." None of his reviews were done 
on Sydney Smith's rule, — of writing before reading the 
book, in order to avoid prejudice ; but this one was 
finished with more than even his usual care. Every thing 
bearing on the subjects treated of was read, — all the con- 
temporary history, every accessible public document (in 
the original tongue) relating to the times under examina- 
tion, military and naval statistics, financial reports. The 
article was not complimentary to Mr. Prescott as an histo- 
rian. One wonders how the reviewer could have sent it to 
him with compliments : one wonders not that the histo- 
rian should have responded by expressing a hope that the 
public would give the same reception to his criticism that 
it gave to his theology. In noticing the reviewer's consci- 
entiousness towards his authors, it is worth while to notice 
the editor's conscientiousness towards his contributors, — 
not too common a virtue with his tribe. 

West Roxbury, June 20, 1848. 
Dear Friend, — I like your paper much, and will put it 
among the critical notices ; only I have added a paragraph at 
the end. If you don't like that, you can strike it out ; for I will 
send you a " proof." The matter lies in a nutshell. The social- 
compact men think a State can make any law it sees fit ; mean- 
ing by the State the people, or, more commonly, the bourgeoisie. 
Here is their error. They forget that a State has no right to en- 
act wrong. Their opponents think a government is divine. It 
34 



398 THEODORE PARKER. 

may be the Devil's government : so long as it keeps its legs, it 
is my duty to obey it. 

I suppose you never read Hobbes, nor Mr. Robert Filmer, nor 
Locke's " Treatise of Civil Government." If you should, you 
would see that Vinton writes in the interest of tyrants, and not 
of mankind. He thinks you must depend on the government, 
not it on you ; that you must be ruled by an external authority, 
and he knows nothing higher or better : so he wants an authori- 
ty in Church and in State. Now, I would as soon trust to the 
social-compact men as to St. Paul ; for he says the powers that 
be are ordained of God. The power at that time was Nero. I 
doubt the correctness of your exegesis of the verse. I think 
you have not sufficiently attended to the historical fact, that 
Paul was writing to a set of fanatical men at Rome, who 
thought, that, inasmuch as their Messiah had come, they were 
set free from all obligation to keep any social laws which he had 
not imposed. I don't believe that Paul at this day would lay 
down such a general thesis as that ; but he did lay it down, it 
seems to me ; and surely that text has been a scripture for 
despotism ever since. 

This is the sum of the matter. Rights and duties are 
anterior to all laws or institutions, and always superior to them. , 
Rights and duties are directly from God ; while laws are only 
mediately divine. I wish Vinton had said that ; but I don't 
believe he could, and know he did not mean to in the sermon. 

I shall like to exchange with you some time in October. 
Now my house is shut up in town, and I live here. 

Yours heartily, 
T. W. Higginson. T * P ' 

" The Quarterly " lived but three years : thanks to him 
that it lived so long. The public was not prepared for 
any thing so thorough or so advanced. Competent and 
willing contributors were too few ; and the political urgency 
was pressing too hotly to allow the requisite leisure to the 
chief editor. The year 1850 — the year of the Fugitive- 
slave Bill — had come, and all superfluities must be 
dropped. The decks must be cleared for immediate 
action. Daniel Webster, the potentate of Whig public 



THE FIGHT WITH SLA VER Y. 399 

opinion in Massachusetts, delivered on the 7th of March 
the speech that forever sealed his doom, and devoted the 
spring and summer to prodigious efforts to persuade the 
men of New England to "overcome their prejudices" in 
favor of freedom. On the 18th of September the bill was 
passed, and sent to the President for approval. The 
acting President, Millard Fillmore, a tool in the hands of 
the slave power, signed it without hesitation, on the advice 
of Attorney-General Crittenden, a citizen of a slave State. 

It was but a virulent revival of an old scheme. A 
fugitive-slave enactment had been passed in 1793 ; and 
under it, in 1842, George Latimer, a slave, was arrested in 
Boston. "The Latimer Journal," a revolutionary sheet, 
was published at this time by Dr. H. I. Bowditch, assist- 
ed by leading antislavery writers, Mr. Parker being one. 
What was probably his first antislavery article, in the form 
of an Eastern allegory, appeared in this journal. Dr. Bow- 
ditch, F. S. Cabot, and William E. Channing, as the Lati- 
mer Committee, obtained 64,526 names in Massachusetts 
to a petition for a personal-liberty bill, which was granted 
by the legislature. This was subsequent to Latimer's re- 
lease, and intended as a guard against similar attempts at 
kidnapping. Some years prior to 1850, a Vigilance Com- 
mittee was appointed at a meeting in Faneuil Hall, called 
on occasion of the kidnapping of a slave in Boston har- 
bor. John Quincy Adams presided over the meeting. 
The leading antislavery men of the day were among the 
members of this committee, whose numbers were subse- 
quently greatly enlarged. Mr. Parker was a member of 
the executive committee, and, it is said, initiated much of 
its action. 

The new law struck dismay into the hearts of the 
blacks who had been living peacefully in the Middle and 
New-England States. The slave-hunters leaped over the 
border, and prowled about in Northern cities in search of 
prey. Ignorant, brutal, crafty, insolent, they snatched 



400 THEODORE PARKER. 

what they could reach, and laid snares for men and wo- 
men as superior to them in all human qualities of intelli- 
gence, industry, fidelity, and courage, as they were supe- 
rior to Bushmen. When, a few weeks ago, William Craft 
sat in my parlor, talking over his scheme for an industrial 
school in Georgia with the air of one accustomed to good 
society, speaking admirable English, and showing a com- 
plete acquaintance with all the conditions of his undertak- 
ing, it was hard to believe that he had been pursued as a 
runaway by a miserable creature who spelt " early " eirly, 
"wait" wate, "wife" wif, "know" 710, and "engaged" 
inguage. But so it was. The government decreed the 
" Christians to the lions ; " and the lions did after their 
kind. The agony and the terror were supreme. Free 
persons were not safe, even such as never had been slaves. 
A black man was a black man : his color was a badge of 
servitude, a prima-facie evidence of chattelhood. If he 
could produce free papers, and get a commissioner to ap- 
prove them, all was well ; but the commissioner was usually 
a creature of the government, and too ready to construe 
appearances against the victim. The hunters' success 
was naturally greatest in the border States ; greatest of 
any in Pennsylvania: but the best game was farther 
north ; and thither the sleuthhounds sped. It is impossi- 
ble to tell how many were carried off or seized altogether, 
— no small number, certainly : but for the vigilance of 
the antislavery people, it would have been very large. 

The old Vigilance Committee was on the alert ; and 
branch committees were formed, wherever there was dan- 
ger, to warn the blacks, conceal them, expedite their es- 
cape if practicable, stand by them with legal aid if ar- 
rested, rescue them from the clutch of the pursuers by 
guile or force if other means failed. ' 

A spy in the United-States marshal's office reported 
the probable issue of warrants ; and rewards were paid for 
timely information of the official movements. The com- 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 401 

mittee were prepared to resist the execution of the law to 
the very verge of civil outbreak, but not to go beyond. 
Their policy was to induce claimants and witnesses, by 
persuasions or threats, to leave the city ; to expel the slave- 
hunters by all means short of deadly assault : and in the 
pursuit of this policy they had need of courage as well as 
discretion ; for the infuriated blacks more than once plot- 
ted the assassination of their pursuers. 

In Boston the panic was fearful ; for Boston, as being 
the hot-bed of abolitionism, was the asylum of the fugi- 
tive. Decisive measures were taken for meeting the 
emergency. Meetings were called, lists of fugitives were 
made, names of citizens were enrolled, organizations were 
effected. A printed list of this Boston Committee of 
Vigilance is before me: it numbers one hundred and 
sixty-three names. They rose in a short time to two hun- 
dred and fifty. The first name on the executive commit- 
tee was Theodore Parker. Associated with him were Wen- 
dell Phillips, S. G. Howe, Edmund Jackson, Charles M. 
Ellis, Charles K. Whipple. When a special committee 
was appointed to act in sudden emergencies, Theodore 
Parker was made its chairman. His whole soul, at this 
time, was on fire. He was ready for any and all work, — 
to draw up resolutions, to write placards, to counsel, or to 
act. Here is his account of the meeting in Faneuil Hall 
to express the popular feeling in regard to the bill. It is 
given in a letter to Miss Stevenson, dated the 14th of 
October. 

"You will wish to hear about the meeting last night. It was 
a very good one. Phillips and Apthorp went down with me at 
half-past six. The galleries were crowded then. At seven 
there were three or four thousand in the hall. None of the 
respectability were there, or but few of them ; none of ' our 
family.' C. F. Adams presided ; read a neat little speech. 
Dr. Lowell opened the services with a touching prayer, which 
carried the hearts of the audience to heaven. It was not non- 
34* 



4C2 THEODORE PARKER. 

committal, not respectable and pharisaic. Douglas spoke, not 
very well, but only long. However, the moderation of his tone, 
the facts he related, and his wit, made it effective on a part of 
the audience. Then came a long letter from Old Ouincy, not 
interesting except from its authorship. Then Wendell spoke, 
and never better. He was received with great applause, cheered 
continually, but once hissed a little when he said that Winthrop 
had voted right in ' a te7nporary spasm of liberty? He said 
nothing about disunion or of hostility to the Constitution. Then 
followed a Mr. Briggs of Ohio, — a tonguey fellow, who told some 
anecdotes, but made little sensation. He is a low stump-orator 
apparently ; but said, wisely enough, that the audience would 
probably like best to hear Boston men, and sat down. Then I 
said a few words ; told the people a few stories about the feel- 
ing and perils of the blacks now ; and put several cases, asking 
them what they would do if the marshal tried to carry off a man 
adjudged to be a slave. They answered well, and promised to 
go with only the arms their mothers gave them, and rescue the 
slave. I asked them to thank Winthrop for his course in the 
Senate ; and to give Mr. E — — , not their hate, &c, but their 
pity ; which they did. Then Remond spoke ; then Douglas 
again, saying that the directors of the Albany and Syracuse Rail- 
road had forbidden their agents to take any slave on their road 
in the hands of the officers, but to put him and the officers out 
of the cars, and to do their best to set the slave free. Then 
we passed the resolutions, — pretty good ones too. Then 
Colver spoke, and interrupted the resolutions by adding, that, 
' law or no law, Constitution or no Constitution, we will never 
let a fugitive slave be carried back from Boston.' That, also, 

was put ; and then, at five minutes before eleven, just as Mr. 

was coming forward with a resolution on the habeas corpus \ I 
suppose, all adjourned." 

The above is but a tame account of a most extraordi- 
nary meeting. The packed hall was charged with feeling 
to which the speakers, all but Phillips and Parker, failed 
to give expression. Douglas's great ship labored heavily 
in the stormy sea. Lesser barks could not live in it a few 
moments, but quickly put back to harbor. The strongest 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 403 

sentiments were most tumultuously applauded. If the 
slaveholders had been there, they would at once have 
abandoned all idea of carrying out their purpose. 

They were not there, and they ventured. 

The excitement in Boston centred in four cases. The 
first touched Parker nearly. William and Ellen Craft 
were fugitive slaves of the higher order, from Macon, 
Ga. He was a joiner, and hired himself of his owner 
— "a very pious man," " an excellent Christian " — 
for about two hundred dollars a )rear. He and his wife 
had cherished for years the plan of escape. Having 
saved a little money, they bought, piece by piece, of dif- 
ferent dealers, at different times, by stealth, a suit of gen- 
tleman's clothes. These Ellen put or. William attended 
her as her servant ; and so they escaped. They lived in 
Boston, he working at his trade. Parker had known them 
ever since their coming. They were parishioners of his, 
respectable, orderly, estimable people. Returning home 
from Plymouth late in the afternoon of Oct. 25, Parker 
learned that the slave-hunters were on their track, — one, 
Hughes or Hews, the jailer at Macon ; another, Knight, 
who knew Craft as a tradesman formerly, and accompa- 
nied Hughes as a witness. Their lodgings were at the 
United-States Hotel. The Vigilance Committee was on 
their watch. Craft was warned, and was not to be caught 
by his old friend's polite invitation to show him the sights 
of Boston, and visit him with his " wif " at the hotel. 
Ellen was secreted at a friendly house. William con- 
sented, unwillingly, to hide at the " South End," — to be 
smuggled there in a carriage ; but presently, and hav- 
ing armed himself, preferred to go about his business, 
and take care of himself after his own fashion. He told 
a police-officer that he would rather be drawn and quar- 
tered than be carried back into slavery. The hunters had 
nc easy task. Judge Woodbury, a Democrat, having issued 
warrants of arrest against Craft and his wife, they brought a 



4<H THEODORE PARKER. 

suit against the kidnappers for defamation of character ; 
they having charged him with being a thief, in that he stole 
the clothes he wore, as well as his own person, when he 
ran away. The writs were served, and the arrests were 
made amid no little confusion, the crowd gathering, and 
muttering ominous threats against the "slave-hunters." 
On the way to the sheriff's office, Knight declared with 
emphasis that he had come for William and Ellen Craft, 
and nobody else ; " and, damn 'em ! I'll have them if I stay 
here to all eternity ; and, if there are not men enough in 
Massachusetts to take them, I will bring some from the 
South. It is not the niggers I care about ; but it 's the 
principle of the thing." The judge demanded bail in ten 
thousand dollars, that being the amount of damages laid. 
There were men in Boston to give it. Who they were 
is not known ; but two persons who were known to be 
intense negro-haters — one a pettifogger, who had ex- 
pressed a willingness to see all negroes hanged ; the other 
a packet-agent, who, four years previous, when the United- 
States Government gave no such permission, had sent back 
a wretched fugitive who had concealed himself in the brig 
" Ottoman " from New Orleans, and was discovered almost 
famished when the voyage was about ended — were on 
hand, and the prisoners were released. Knight slipped 
out at the back-door, to the disappointment of the crowd, 
which had prepared for him an honest welcome. As 
Hughes entered the carriage which drove him away from 
the scene, a negro jumped up behind, dashed in the glass, 
and would have shot the wretch, had not one of the com- 
mittee dragged him down. The carriage was chased a 
long distance, till it was out of town. 

The Committee of Vigilance instantly held a meeting, 
and took new precautions. A poster was issued, describ- 
ing the slave-hunters in graphic and thrilling language, 
such as was wont to proceed, on occasion, from the min- 
ister of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society. The 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 405 

men were watched. Parker urged the appointment of a 
committee to attend them all day, keeping them in view 
from morning till night : he was ready to take his turn. 
The pastor does not neglect his parishioners. He goes to 
Brookline, to Mr. Ellis Gray Loring's, to cheer Ellen ; to 
Louis Hayden's, to advise William. "I inspected his 
arms, — a good revolver with six caps on, a large pistol, two 
small ones, a large dirk, and a short one : all was right." 
On the very day of the bond-giving, the committee met, 
and voted to visit en masse, at six o'clock the next morn- 
ing, the United-States Hotel, where Knight and Hughes 
were staying. At the hour appointed, about sixty gentle- 
men were on the spot, filling the hall-ways, avowing their 
purpose to watch the kidnappers. Mr. Parker knew their 
room, and, taking with him a companion, ascended the 
stairs, stationed himself as a sentry at the door, and paced 
solemnly up and down ; he and his comrade gravely pass- 
ing one another in the corridor. This continued for some 
minutes ; when the landlord, excited, came, and insisted 
that they should withdraw. Mr. Parker refused to leave 
his post without assurance of seeing the men he sought. 
The landlord promised them an interview in the parlor, and 
consented — readily enough, it is likely — to rid his house 
of such obnoxious guests. The interview was held ; Mr. 
Parker speaking for the committee. He addressed them as 
their sincere friend, who came in the cause of peace, and 
to secure their safety from the populace. He had not 
stirred up the excitement. The indignation was sponta- 
neous, natural, and deep, and could not be allayed while 
they remained in Boston. He represented to them the 
extreme personal danger in which they stood, the utter 
hopelessness of their undertaking ; and counselled them, 
for their own sake, to leave town at once. Knight blus- 
tered, and Hughes complained ; but both the men were a 
good deal frightened, and took the p.m. train for New 
York. It was time \ for indignation was waxing hot. Their 



406 THEODORE PARKER. 

persons were Known : they could not leave the hotel un- 
molested by street-boys, who bestowed on them unsavory 
names, and required no urging to bestow unsavory things. 
Had they staid longer, there might have been bloodshed ; 
for the President, so it was rumored, talked of sending 
soldiers to dragoon the Bostonians into their duty. 

The hunters being gone, the Crafts determined to go 
to England, and requested their minister to marry them by 
legal form before they went A certificate was obtained 
according to the new law of Massachusetts ; and, at eleven 
o'clock in the forenoon of Nov. 7, the ceremony was 
performed at a colored boarding-house in the city. Be- 
fore the ceremony, the minister, as was his custom, ad- 
dressed a few pertinent remarks to the couple, who now, 
for the first time, entered into the bands of Christian wed- 
lock. He said to them first what he usually said to bride- 
grooms and brides. Then he spoke to Mr. Craft of his 
peculiar duties. He was an outlaw. No law protected 
his liberty in the United States : for that he must depend 
on the public opinion of Boston and on himself. If at- 
tacked by one wishing to return him to slavery, he had a 
right, a natural right, to resist the man unto death. For 
himself, he might refuse, if he saw fit, to exercise the 
right : but his wife depended on him for protection ; and 
to protect her was a duty he could not decline. " So I 
charged him, if the worst came to the worst, to defend the 
life and liberty of his wife against any slaveholder, at 
all hazards." The marriage-rite was then performed. 
The occasion prompted the prayer. A Bible lay on one 
table \ on another a " bowie-knife," placed there by some 
person unknown to Mr. Parker. He saw them when he 
came in, and, the ceremony being ended, took the book, 
placed it in the man's left hand, and charged him to use 
its noble truths for the salvation of his own soul and his 
wife's soul. This done, he took the knife, placed it in 
the man's right hand with words of equal pertinency, and 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. . 407 

charged him to use it only in the last extremity ; to bear 
no harsh or revengeful feelings against those who once 
held him in bondage, or such as sought to make him and 
his wife slaves even now : " Nay, if you cannot use the 
sword in defence of your wife's liberty without hating the 
man you strike, then your action will not be without sin." 
The fugitives left the country, bearing the following let- 
ter-missive from their pastor to his brother-minister in 
Liverpool, James Martineau : — 

To Rev. Mr. Martineau. 

Boston, Nov. ii, 1850. 

Dear Friend, — I take this opportunity to write you a brief 
note to interest you in a couple of my parishioners who are 
about to visit England under quite remarkable circumstances. 
They are two fugitive slaves, — William Craft and his wife Ellen 
Craft. Perhaps you have heard their story : if you have not, 
you will, before long, learn of their wonderful flight from Macon 
in Georgia to Philadelphia, — a distance of more than nine hun- 
dred miles through the enemy's country. The Fugitive-slave 
Law was passed last September. It is one of the most atro- 
cious acts ever passed since the first persecution of the Chris- 
tians by Nero. It allows the owner to come to Boston, or send 
his agent ; apply to a commissioner of the United States, who 
may be a miserable tool of government, and probably will be 
(certainly he often is, and we have one loathsome commissioner 
in Boston, if no more) ; and decide that a certain man is his 
slave. The commissioner gives the slave-hunter a warrant to 
seize the slave, and transport him back to bondage. The slave- 
hunter takes it to the marshal ; the marshal makes the seizure ; 
and the poor victim is hurried off to slavery as hopeless as the 
grave. All this may be done without allowing the fugitive to 
defend himself ; with no inquest by a jury ; without the fugitive 
ever seeing his hunter till he comes with the marshal to put 
handcuffs on his wrists. 

The Crafts have been in Boston nearly two years ; are sober 
and industrious people. She is a seamstress : he is a cabinet- 
maker. They are members of my parish. But, a few weeks 
ago, there came a ruffian from Macon in Georgia, by the name 



v/ 



408 THEODORE PARKER. 

of Hughes, — he is a jailer at home, — with authority to seize 
and carry off the two fugitives. He applied to the proper offi- 
cer, got his warrant, and secured the services of the marshal. 
All was ready for the seizure ; but William armed himself with 
two revolvers and a substantial dirk, and was ready to kill any 
one who should attempt to kidnap him. His wife was concealed 
by some friends, who kept her safe and sound. I will tell you 
more of her concealment at some future time ; but it is not safe 
now. 

The slave-hunters remained in Boston more than a week. 
There was a " vigilance committee " appointed by a meeting of 
citizens ; and they kept the slave-hunters in a state of disturb- 
ance all the time they remained here, and finally frightened them 
so, that they were glad to sneak out of the city. After the 
danger was over, Craft's friends thought it was wiser for them 
to go to England, that you may see what sort of men and women 
we make slaves of in " the model republic." They need no 
pecuniary aid ; but if you will tell their story to your friends, ?nd 
draw public attention to the fact that such persons are not safe 
in Boston, you may help the great cause of humanity in a new 
mode. . . . 

I keep in my study two trophies of the American Revolution : 
one is a musket which my grandfather fought with at the battle 
of Lexington (April 19, 1775) against the "British ; " the other 
is a great gun which he captured in that battle. He was the 
captain of the Lexington soldiers, and took the first prisoner, 
and the first musket taken in war for independence and the 
rights of man. But now I am obliged to look to " the British " 
for protection for the liberty of two of my own parishioners 
who have committed no wrong against any one. Well, so it is ; 
and I thank God that Old England, with all her sins and 
shames, allows no slave-hunter to set foot on her soil. 

I have written you a long letter, when I intended to write only 
a short note. I am glad to learn from my friend Sargent what 
a pleasant time he had with you in North Wales and elsewhere. 
I wish I had been of the party. Remember me kindly to Mrs. 
Martineau and the children. I know not how many there are 
now ; but there was a houseful of them once. Give my kindest 
regards to Mr. and Mrs. Thorn. I wish you would show him 
this letter ; for I think his great heart will be interested in the 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 409 

case of these poor fugitives. With many and affectionate 
regards, believe me 

Truly your friend, 

Theo. Parker. 

If any are disposed to think the scene of the wedding 
above described theatrical, the accompaniments stagey, and 
the speech bombastic, — the whole performance in need- 
lessly bad taste, — let them read, in connection with the 
letter to Mr. Martineau, the following to President Millard 
Fillmore, written two weeks after the transaction in Bos- 
ton. If they feel on reading it as others have done, they 
will understand how the act and the manner of its doing 
were in simplest accordance with an established state of 
mind ; that no artificial sentiment, no touch of the mock- 
heroic, entered into it ; that every word was an inevitable 
product of conviction. Only a man terribly in earnest 
could even meditate such a writing, as only a man terribly 
in earnest could have done such a deed. 

To Millard Fillmore, Esq., Washington. 

Boston, Nov. 21, 1850. 

Honored Sir, — This letter is one which requires only time 
to read : I cannot expect you to reply to it. I am myself a 
clergyman in this city, — not one of those, unfortunately, who 
are much respected ; but, on the contrary, I have an ill name, and 
am one of the most odious men in this State : no man out of the 
political arena is so much hated in Massachusetts as myself. 
/ think this hatred is chargeable only to certain opinions which 
I entertain relative to theology and to morals. Still I think I 
have never been accused of wanting reverence for God, or love 
for man; of disregard to truth and to justice. I say all this 
by way of preface ; for I need not suppose you know any thing 
of me. 

I have a large religious society in this town, composed of " all 

sorts and conditions of men," — fugitive slaves who do not 

legally own the nails on their fingers, and cannot read the Lord's 

Prayer ; and also men and women of wealth and fine cultivation. 

35 



41 o THEODORE PARKER. 

I wish to inform you of the difficulty in which we (the church and 
myself) are placed by the new Fugitive-slave Law. There are 
several fugitive slaves in the society. They have committed no 
wrong: they have the same "inalienable right to life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness," that you have. They naturally 
look to me for advice in their affliction : they are strangers, 
and ask me to take them in ; hungry, and beg me to feed them ; 
thirsty, and would have me give them drink ; they are naked, and 
look to me for clothing ; sick, and wish me to visit them ; yes, 
they are ready to perish, and ask their life at my hands. Even 
the letter of the most Jewish of the Gospels makes Christ say, 
"" Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto one of the least of these, 
ye have not done it unto me." They come to me as to their 
Christian minister, and ask me to do to them only what Christi- 
anity evidently requires : they wish me to do to others as I 
would have others do to me. 

But your law will punish me with fine of a thousand dollars, 
and imprisonment for six months, if I take in one of these 
strangers, feed and clothe these naked and hungry children of 
want ; nay, if I visit them when they are sick, come unto them 
when they are in prison, or help them, "directly or indirectly," 
when they are ready to perish. Suppose I should refuse to do for 
them what Christianity demands : I will not say what I should 
think of myself, but what you would say. You would say I was 
a scoundrels that I was really an infidel (my theological breth- 
ren call me so) ; that I deserved a jail for six years : you would 
say right. But, if I do as you must know that I ought, then 
your law strips me of my property, tears me from my wife, and 
shuts me in a jail. Perhaps I do not value the obligations of 
religion so much as my opponents of another faith ; but I must 
say I would rather lie all my life in a jail, and starve there, than 
refuse to protect one of these parishioners of mine. Do not call 
me a fanatic ; I am a cool and sober man : but / mtist rever- 
ence the laws of God, come of that what will co?ne. I must be 
true to my religion. 

I send you a little sermon of mine (see p. 36). You will find 
the story of a fugitive slave whom I have known. He is now in 
Quebec, in the service of one of the most eminent citizens of 
that city. He is a descendant of one of our Revolutionary gen- 
erals. Members of my society aided him in his flight ; others 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 411 

concealed him, and helped him to freedom. Can you think they 
did wrong ? Can you think of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, of its self-evident truths, can you think of Christi- 
anity, and then blame these men ? The Hungarians found 
much natural sympathy all over the United States, though 
some men in Boston took sides with Austria ; the nation is 
ready to receive Kossuth : but what is Austrian tyranny to slave- 
ry in America ? The Emperor of Turkey has the thanks of 
all the liberal governments of Europe for hiding the outcasts of 
Hungary ; and can you blame these for starting "Joseph," and 
helping him to Canada ? I know it is not possible. 

William Craft and Ellen were parishioners of mine. They 
have been at my house. I married them a fortnight ago this 
day. After the ceremony, I put a Bible, and then a sword, into 
William's hands, and told him the use of each. When the 
slave-hunters were here, suppose I had helped the man to es- 
cape out of their hands ; suppose I had taken the woman to my 
own house, and sheltered her there till the storm had passed by : 
should yott think I did a thing worthy of fine and imprison- 
ment ? If I took all peaceful measures to thwart the kidnappers 
(legal kidnappers) of their prey, would that be a thing for pun- 
ishment ? You cannot think that I am to stand by and see my 
own church carried off to slavery, and do nothing to hinder 
such a wrong. 

There hang beside me in my library, as I write, the gun my 
grandfather fought with at the battle of Lexington, — he was a 
captain on that occasion, — and also the musket he captured 
from a British soldier on that day, — the first taken in the war 
for independence. If I would not peril my property, my liberty, 
nay, my life, to keep my own parishioners out of slavery, then 
I would throw away these trophies, and should think I was the 
son of some coward, and not a brave man's child. There are 
many who think as I do about this ; many that say it : most 
of the men I preach to are of this way of thinking. (Yet one of 
these bailed Hughes, the si? ^e-hunter from Georgia, out of 
prison.) There is a minis who preaches to the richest 
church in Boston : he is a " mpshire man, and writes 

as any New-Hampshire ponV^ J 0HA Ie has been impolitely 
called the "spaniel of King'seet and'l," — an amiable, inof- 
fensive man. But even he sayi and 3 ould conceal a fugitive." 



412 THEODORE PARKER. 

Not five of the eighty Protestant ministers of Boston would 
refuse. I only write to you to remind you of the difficulties in 
our way. If need is, we will suffer any penalties you may put 
upon us ; but we must keep the law of God. I beg you 
to excuse this letter ; and, with many good wishes for your pros- 
perity, believe me 

Your obedient servant, 

Theodore Parker. 

The Committee of Vigilance was not allowed to slum- 
ber. The slave-hunters were still abroad. In less than 
three months, the excitement was renewed by another case 
of arrest. The fugitive Shadrach was seized, and shut 
up in the United-States court-room, on Feb. 15, 1851. 
The next day (Sunday) the prayers of all the ministers 
and congregations were requested for his deliverance. 
They were answered before they were put up. Mr. Par- 
ker went to Court Square immediately on hearing of the 
arrest, " intending to make a rescue if possible ; " but the 
rescue had already been effected. The commissioner had 
adjourned the case ; the crowd had left the court-room ; 
the building was closed ; the guarded prisoner remained 
inside. An importunate member of the Vigilance Com- 
mittee beat upon the door till it was opened to him ; the 
crowd pushed in ; and in a moment, before the bewildered 
officers could recover themselves, the man was lifted up 
in the arms of his friends, and borne away. There was 
no noise or excitement : but the rush of the rescuers was 
too tremendous to be resisted by any but military force ; 
and that would have been dangerous, for preparations for 
armed resistance had been made. An attempt at rescue 
would have been hopeless, even had there been time ; but 
there was no time. That v y afternoon the man was 
hurried off on his way ,tc ^ m ida, and saved. Mr. Par- 
ker wrote in his diary r ik it the most noble deed 

. _ . j one of . 

done in Boston since i n( j ant c »truction of the tea in 1773. 

I thank God for it." g 0C iety 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 413 

On the Sunday, in addition to preaching in the morn- 
ing, lecturing in the afternoon on 1 Cor. iv.-vii., making 
visits, writing notes for a meeting of the Executive (Vigi- 
lance) Committee, and attending the meeting, he wrote 
a poster describing the slaveholders then in the city. It 
could not have been the following, doubtless from the 
same hand, but bearing date the 4th of April ; but this 
will serve as a specimen of the bills that were put up in 
those fearful times : — 



PROCLAMATION. 

TO ALL THE GOOD PEOPLE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Be it known that there are now three slave-hunters, or 
kidnappers, IN BOSTON, looking for their prey. One of them 
is called 

DAVIS. 

He is an unusually ill-looking fellow, about five feet eight inches 
high, wide-shouldered. He has a big mouth, bk ^k hair, and a 
good deal of dirty, bushy hair on the lower p >0 t of his face. 
He has a Roman nose. One of his eyes has been, knocked out. 
He looks like a pirate, and knows how to be a stealer of men. 
The next is called 

EDWARD BARRETT. 

He is about five feet six inches high, thin and lank ; is appar- 
ently about thirty years old. His nose turns up a little. He 
has a long mouth, long, thin ears, and dark eyes. His hair is 
dark ; and he has a bunch of fur on his chin. He had on a blue 
frock with a velvet collar, mixed pants, and a figured vest. He 
wears his shirt-collar turned down, and has a black string — 
not of hemp — about his neck. 
The third ruffian is named 

ROBERT M. BACON, alias JOHN D. BACON. 

He is about fifty years old ; five feet and a half high. He has 
a red, intemperate-looking face, and a retreating forehead. 
35* 



414 THEODORE PARKER. 

His hair is dark, and a little gray. He wears a black coat, 
mixed pants, and a purplish vest. He looks sleepy, and yet 
malicious. 

Given at Boston this fourth day of April, in the year of 
our Lord 185 1, and of the independence of the United 
States the fifty-fourth. 

God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts / 

This resolution was not untouched with sadness. His 
friends the Shaws sail for Europe. He doubts if he 
ever sees them again. "For I must not let a fugitive 
slave be taken from Boston, cost what it may justly cost. 
I will not (so I think now) use weapons to rescue a man 
with ; but I will go unarmed when there is a reasonable 
chance of success, and make the rescue." 

From the Journal. 

Feb. 21, 1851. — Continual alarms about the poor fugitive 
slaves. A repelled arrest of a new one ; but this turned out to 
be a false alarrr.c;. 

1. The case W , who concealed in his cellar all night. 

2. Also the , who came and gave information of an 

attempt about to be made on ; and he escaped. 

3. The confession which made to about the inten- 
tions of the and the provisions he made. 

4. The strategy of Mr. in getting information, and how 

he does it. 

These are sad times to live in ; but I shall be sorry not to 
have lived in them. It will seem a little strange, one or two 
hundred years hence, that a plain, humble scholar of Boston 
was continually interrupted in his studies, and could not write 
his book, for stopping to look after fugitive slaves, — his own 
parishioners ! 

Saturday, 22d. — Washington's birthday. At home, and 
very busy with fugitive-slave matters. 

Sunday, 23d. — Sermon 618, a.m. Roxbury, p.m. I have 
not been well these several days. 

Monday, 24th. — At Cambridge most of the day : not we 1 
Writing report on fugitive-slave petitions at night. 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 415 

Tuesday, 25th. — At home, and about antislavery business. 
p.m. at State House with antislavery committee. Phillips, 
Sewall, and Ellis spoke. Vigilance Committee at night. 

Wednesday, 26th. — Much time on fugitive-slave matters. 

The third great slave case, that of Thomas Sims, ter- 
minated less happily than Shadrach's, and caused more 
excitement afterwards than it did when in progress. 
Sims was arrested on the night of April 3. He drew a 
knife on the officers, and was arrested as a disturber of 
the peace \ though the arrest caused the disturbance. The 
writ of habeas corpus was refused him. He never saw 
a jury; but once a judge. The commissioner, George 
Ticknor Curtis, after a summary examination, gave him 
up to his pursuers. The poor boy, knowing that his fate 
was sealed, begged of his counsel one favor : " Give me a 
knife ; and, when the commissioner declares me a slave, I 
will stab myself to the heart, and die before his eyes. I 
will not be a slave ! " Such a prayer could not be granted. 
At the dead of night, the mayor of Boston, with his 
marshal, attended by two or three hundred policemen, 
armed with horse-pistols, swords, or bludgeons, at con- 
venience, took the victim from his cell, chained, weeping ; 
marched him over the spot which the blood of Attucks 
had stained ; put him on board " The Acorn ; " and sent 
him off to endless bondage. " And this," said the miser- 
able negro as he stepped on board, "is Massachusetts 
liberty ! " A I^oston delegation saw him duly delivered to 
his owner, who had him whipped in the town jail within an 
inch of his life. This was on the historic 19th of April. 

Parker bore his testimony in a sermon which Charles 
Sumner thanked him for, saying that it stirred him to the 
bottom of his heart ; at times softening him almost to 
tears j then, again, filling him with rage. " You have placed 
the commissioner in an immortal pillory, to receive the 
hootings and rotten eggs of the advancing generations." 



416 THEODORE PARKER. 



To Hon. Charles Sumner. 

Boston, April 19, 1851. 

Dear Sumner, — I wish it was the 19th of April, 1775, on 
which I was writing : the times would not look so bad for Bos- 
ton. What a disgrace has the city brought on herself ! " O 
Boston, Boston, thou that kidnappest men ! " might one say- 
now. 

I never had any confidence in the Supreme Court of Massa- 
chusetts in case the Fugitive-slave Law came before it. But 
think of old stiff-necked Lemuel visibly going under the 
chains ! * That was a spectacle ! But it all wOrks well. Thank 
you for your kind words and kind judgments of 

Truly your friend, T. P. 

The event that could not be prevented had to be com- 
memorated. To the feeling it excited Charles Sumner 
was in part indebted for his senatorial election. 

In May, Mr. Parker had the curiosity to attend the 
Berry-street Conference, — a meeting at which Unitarian 
ministers were wont to commune together on matters that 
affected their theological peace. On this occasion Rev. 
Samuel J. May of Syracuse ventured to obtrude the vexed 
question of duty in regard to the Fugitive-slave Law. It 
had been brought up at the business-meeting of the Unita- 
rian Association, and was refused a hearing. On Wednes- 
day it was brought up again at the Ministerial Conference, 
and after a good deal of discussion, and not a little diplo- 
macy, was made the subject of special consideration for the 
next day. Even on Thursday morning, time was wasted 
in idle preliminaries, as if with the purpose of preventing 
action. The social position of the city ministers made 
them unsympathetic with the brethren from the country, 
who looked at the matter with a more single eye, and were 

* Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, who could only enter his court-room by 
stooping under the chain which was stretched round the building to keep off 
the people. 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 417 

sincerely anxious to hear what the great authorities of the 
sect had to say. The discussion began at length, in the 
usual indirect and inconsequential manner, by a brother 
from New York, who defended Dr. Orville Dewey against 
the charge of having said publicly that he would send his 
own mother back to slavery if it was necessary to preserve 
the Union : questioning, in the first place, the accuracy of 
the report ; in the next place, protesting against the impu- 
tation of " worldly motives " on the doctor's part. • Next a 
leading minister of Boston criticised severely the senti- 
ment of one .of the body, — that the Fugitive-slave Law 
" could not be administered with a pure heart or unsullied 
conscience," contending that it could; and then made 
two points justifying obedience to the law : 1. That to dis- 
obey would involve disobedience to all law. We must 
either have law without liberty, or liberty without law. 
Law without liberty was despotism : liberty without law' 
was license. Despotism was bad ; but anarchy was worse. 
2. Disobedience to the Fugitive-slave Law involved disso- 
lution of the Union ; and with the Union went all hope of 
freedom and human rights. 

Mr. Parker spoke amid a silence of suppressed discon- 
tent. He regretted that years ago there had not prevailed 
more of this brotherly spirit which refused to judge men 
for their "opinions." In regard to the main question, the 
consequence of obedience or disobedience to the Fugitive- 
slave Law, he affirmed that in no country on earth was 
there more respect for law than in New England. Disobe- 
dience is unpopular even when the law is. Nowhere were 
judges more respected than in Massachusetts. So true was 
all this, that to inform against one's neighbor, if he vio- 
lated the law of the land, — an act infamous everywhere 
else, — was commended, for the reason that the people 
made the laws for themselves, were represented by them, 
and educated by them. The value of human laws is to 
conserve the eternal laws of God. So long as laws did 



418 THEODORE PARKER. 

this, they should be obeyed. The Fugitive-slave Law 
did the opposite. It aspired to trample on the law of 
God. It commanded what nature, religion, and God 
alike forbade : it forbade what nature, religion, and God 
alike commanded. Who are they that oppose the Fugi- 
tive-slave Law? Men who have always been on the 
side of law and order, and whose disobedience is one of 
the strongest guaranties of just law and equitable order. 
You cannot trust a people that will keep law because it is 
law: you cannot distrust a people that will keep no 
law but what is just. Obedience to the Fugitive-slave 
Law would do more to overturn the Union than all disobe- 
dience to it the most complete. 

As to the dissolution of the Union, if any State wished 
to . go, she had a natural right to go. But what States 
wished to go ? Certainly not New England. Massachu- 
setts had always been attached to the Union ; had adhered 
to it faithfully ; had made sacrifices for it. The cry of 
dissolution was vain and deceitful : none knew that so 
well as the men who raised it. But suppose that dis- 
solution were the alternative of disobedience : which 
would be the worse ? Is the Union as precious as con- 
science, freedom, duty? "For my own part, I would 
rather see my own house burned to the ground, and my 
family thrown, one by one, amid the blazing rafters of my 
own roof, and myself be thrown in last of all, than have 
a single fugitive slave sent back as Thomas Sims was 
sent back : nay, I would rather see this Union dissolved 
till there was not a territory so big as the county of Suf- 
folk. Let us lose every thing but fidelity to God. ... I 
am not going to speak honeyed words, or prophesy smooth 
things, in times like these, — our court-house a barracoon, 
our officers slave-hunters, members of our Unitarian 
churches kidnappers ! I have in my church black men, 
fugitive slaves : they are the crown of my apostleship, the 
seal of my ministry. It becomes me to look after their 



THE FIGHT WITH SI AVERY. 419 

bodies, to save their souls. I have been obliged to take 
my own parishioners into my house to keep them out of 
the clutches of the kidnappers : yes, gentlemen, I have 
been obliged to do that, and to keep my doors guarded 
by day as well as by night. I have had to arm myself. 
I have written my sermons with a pistol in my desk, 
loaded, with a cap on the nipple, ready for action ; yes, 
with a drawn sword within reach of my right hand, — this 
in Boston, in the middle of the nineteenth century ! I am 
no non-resistant : that nonsense never went down with 
me. But it is no small matter that would compel me to 
shed human blood. Still, that could I do. I was born 
in the little town where the fight and bloodshed of the 
Revolution began. The bones of the men who first fell 
in that war are covered by the monument at Lexington. 
It is ' Sacred to Liberty and the Rights of Man- 
kind.' This is the first inscription I ever read. These 
men were my kindred. My grandfather slew the first man 
in the Revolution. The blood which flowed then is kin- 
dred to that which runs in my veins to-day. Besides that, 
when I write in my library at home, on one side of me 
is the Bible which my fathers prayed over, their morning 
and their evening prayer, for nearly one hundred years : 
on the other side hangs the firelock my grandfather fought 
with in the old French war, which he carried at the taking 
of Quebec, which he used at xhe battle of Lexington ; 
and beside it is another, a trophy of that war, — the first 
gun taken in the Revolution • taken by my grandfather. 
With these trophies before me, these memories in me, when 
a fugitive from slavery came to my house, pursued by the 
kidnappers, what could I do less than take him in, and 
defend him to the last ? My brother justifies the Fugi- 
tive-slave Law ; demands obedience to it ; calls on his 
parishioners to kidnap mine, and sell them into bondage 
forever. He is a ' Christian,' and I am an ' infidel.' 
" O my brothers ! I am not afraid of men : I can offend 



420 THEODORE PARKER. 

them. I care nothing for their hate or their esteem ; I am 
not very careful of my reputation : but I dare not violate 
the eternal law of God. You have called me 'infidel' 
Surely I differ widely enough from you in my theology. 
But there is one thing I cannot fail to trust : that is the 
Infinite God, father of the white man, and father, also, 
of the white man's slave. I should not dare violate his 
law, come what would come." 

For two months the journal is suspended. He opens it 
again with the hope, that, for the next five or six years, he 
may have less to do with social, civil, and political duties, 
and attend to his function as scholar, philosopher, theo- 
logian, and writer. But the fates forbade. He went in 
his vacation to hear J. F. Clarke preach ; but was called 
out, the sermon just begun, on antislavery business. The 
Fugitive-slave Law was in force ; though the attempts to 
enforce it were not, for the moment, active. The passage 
of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill revived them ; and the friends 
of that relaxed no effort to have it executed. Daniel 
Webster, who had declared resistance to, and even de- 
nunciation of, the Fugitive-slave Law, to be "high treason," 
died at Marshfield in October, 1852 ; and Parker — who 
had glorified him from his childhood up to the fatal 7 th 
of March, when the mighty man turned his back on the 
fine traditions of his younger days, and had then taken his 
likeness from the place of honor where it stood, kissed it 
sadly, and put it away where it could not be seen — made 
the grandest of his pulpit orations on the false statesman's 
character. They who would know Mr. Parker should 
read that oration. It was, as has been said, written 
literally with prayers and tears, in clearest memory of 
every step in Webster's career; with judgment clarified by 
comparison of him with the greatest orators of the race, 
and confirmed by an exact estimate of his deeds and op- 
portunities - } with conscience quieted by the contemplation 
of nature, and exalted by meditation on the eternal law ; 



THE FIGHT WITH SI A VERY. 421 

and with soul touched by the sorrows and needs of human* 
ity. There is an awful pathos in some of its sentences. 

" Mr. Webster stamped his foot, and broke through into the 
great hollow of practical atheism which undergulfs the State and 
Church. The firm-set base of Northern cities quaked and 
yawned with gaping rents. Penn's ' sandy foundation ' shook 
again ; and black men fled from the city of brotherly love, as 
doves, with plaintive cry, flee from a farmer's barn when sum- 
mer lightning stabs the roof. There was a twist in Faneuil 
Hall ; and the doors could not open wide enough for Liberty 
to regain her ancient cradle. Only soldiers, greedy to steal a 
man, themselves stole out and in. Metropolitan churches toppled 
and pitched, and canted and cracked. Colleges, broken from 
the chain which held them in the stream of time, rushed towards 
the abysmal rent. Doctors of divinity, orthodox, heterodox, 
had great alacrity in sinking. ' There is no higher law of God,' 
quoth they as they went down ; ' no golden rule ; only the 
statutes of men.' 

" But spite of all this, in every city, in every town, in every 
college, and in each capsizing church, there were found faithful 
men who feared not the monster, heeded not the stamping. In 
all their houses there was light ; and the destroying angel shook 
them not. The Word of the Lord came in open vision to their 
eye : they had their lamps trimmed and burning, their loins girt ; 
they stood road-ready. Liberty and religion turned in thither ; 
and the slave found bread and wings. . . . 

" The streets are hung with black ; the newspapers are sad- 
colored ; the shops are put in mourning ; the public business 
stops ; and flags drop half-mast down. The courts adjourn, — 
even at Baltimore and Washington the courts adjourn ; for the 
great lawyer is dead, and justice must wait another day. Only 
the United-States Court in Boston, trying a man for helping 
Shadrach out of the furnace of the kidnappers, — the court 
which executes the Fugitive-slave Bill, — that does not adjourn ; 
that keeps on : its worm dies not ; and the fire of its perse- 
cution is not quenched when death puts out the lamp of life." 

On the 23d of May, 1854, Charles F. Suttle of Virginia 
presented to Edward Greely Loring of Boston, commis- 
36 



422 THEODORE PARKER. 

sioner, a complaint under the Fugitive-slave Bill, praying 
for the seizure and enslavement of Anthony Burns. The 
warrant was issued the next day. In the evening, Burns 
was arrested on the false pretext of burglary, taken to the 
Suffolk-county Court House, and there kept under an 
armed guard. On the 25th the case came before the com- 
missioner. Burns was brought in guarded and ironed. 
The claimant presented his documents : his witnesses 
were on the spot, ready to testify; his legal counsel, S. J. 
Thomas and E. G. Parker, were ready with their state- 
ment. The commissioner had made up his mind, and the 
case seemed in a good train to be "summarily" disposed 
of ; when Theodore Parker, with a few stanch friends, 
made his way into the court-room, gained speech with 
the prisoner, ascertained that it was his wish to be heard, 
and demanded the right of counsel. Thereupon Richard 
H. Dana, Esq., asked that counsel be assigned, and a 
defence allowed ; urging the point so strongly, that the 
commissioner was forced to yield. The hearing was post- 
poned till ten o'clock of May 27. On the evening of the 
26th — the mayor and aldermen cheerfully consenting, the 
mayor even regretting that a previous engagement made 
it impossible for him to preside — a great meeting was 
held at Faneuil Hall. Samuel G. Howe called it to order ; 
George R. Russell presided ; Mr. Parker, Wendell Phil- 
lips, and others made speeches. 

The meeting had a general and a special object. The 
general object was to excite popular indignation; the 
special object, to aid in a concerted attempt to rescue 
Burns by an overwhelming and sudden attack on the 
Court House. The plan of such an attack had been dis- 
cussed in committee, and had been voted down by the 
majority, who thought it desperate. Nevertheless, the 
committee allowed the friends of the project to meet in 
one of their rooms for the completion of their plans. 
Mr. Parker favored the assault : Mr. Phillips, it is thought, 
did not. 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 423 

The suppressed excitement at the meeting was intense ; 
and nothing occurred to allay it. The resolutions read 
by Dr. Howe, the speech of John L. Swift, were in the 
interest of the conspirators. Wendell Phillips threw 
no water on the kindling flame. Mr. Parker took the 
stand, purposing to heat the audience red-hot, fuse them 
together, and, at a given signal, to hurl them into Court 
Square. He was a powerful platform-speaker, responsive 
at once and magnetic ; and, on this occasion, he rose to a 
height he never surpassed : his frame quivered with the 
action of his mind ; his voice, in passages, was like the 
roar of a lion at bay. 

" Fellow -Subjects of Virginia," he began; "Fel- 
low-Citizens of Boston, then* — A deed which Virginia 
commands has been done in the city of John Hancock 
and the 'brace of Adamses.' It was done by a Boston 
hand. It was a Boston man who issued the warrant ; it 
was a Boston marshal who put it in execution ; they are 
Boston men who are seeking to kidnap a citizen of Massa- 
chusetts, and send him into slavery for ever and ever. It 
is our fault that it is so. We are the vassals of Virginia : 
she reaches her arm over the graves of our mothers, and 
kidnaps men in the city of the Puritans. Gentlemen, 
there is no Boston to-day. There was " a Boston once : 
now there is a North suburb to the city of Alexandria. 
Gentlemen, there is one law, — slave law : it is everywhere. 
There is another law which is also a finality ; and that law 
— it is in your hands and your arms, and you can put it in 
execution just when you see fit. 

"I am a clergyman and a man of peace. I love peace. 
But there is a means, and there is an end. Liberty is 
the end ; and sometimes peace is not the means toward it. 
There are ways of managing this matter without shooting 
anybody. Be sure that these men who have kidnapped a 
man in Boston are cowards, every mother's son of them ; 
and if we stand up there resolutely, and declare that this 



424 THEODORE PARKER. 

man shall not go out of the city of Boston, without shoot- 
ing a gun, then he won't go back. Now I am going to 
propose, that, when you adjourn, it be to meet at Court 
Square to-morrow morning at nine o 'clock. As many as are 
in favor of that motion will raise their hands." (Many 
hands were raised : but there came from many voices a 
Cry, " Let's go to-night ; " " Let's pay a visit to the slave- 
catchers at the Revere House ; " and a demand was made 
for that question. It was put.) " Do you propose to go to 
the Revere House to-night ? then show your hands. It is 
not a vote. We shall meet at Court Square at nine o 'dock 
to-morrow morning" The conclusion was lame, impotent, 
and unaccountable., Parker explained it afterwards to a 
friend by saying that he waited for the signal, and it was 
not given. For half an hour he had talked against time, 
had repeated himself, lingered, and finally taken his seat 
in sheer perplexity. 

By some mistake, it would seem, some inadvertency, 
some delay, the signal was not given at the moment 
agreed on. Mr. Phillips rose again (this is William F. 
Channing's account), never cordially assenting to the plan 
of assault, and now persuaded that a miscarriage had pre- 
vented it entirely, and addressed himself to the task of 
allaying the passion of the confused and frenzied people. 
Of course, he succeeded: when did he ever fail in a 
rhetorical effort ? The meeting became calm, — fatally so 
for its original purpose ; and at that moment the signal 
was given at the door by the announcement that an attack 
was even then making at the Court House. It was too 
late. The meeting broke up \ the multitude streamed 
forth ; but, before the most advanced could reach Court 
Street, the struggle had begun. Those in the rear of the 
hall and on the platform could hardly have made their 
way to the door by the time it had ceased. 

The attacking-party did their work promptly and with 
determination. Mr. Channing, an antislavery man from 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 425 

the beginning, member of the Vigilance Committee, ar- 
rived on the spot in time to see the beam which answered 
as a battering-ram brought from the staircase of the 
Museum building oppo^ 'te, and carried across the street, 
by a dozen men. The he^vy folding-doors yielded to the 
force of the blows ; the sound reverberating through the 
streets, loud enough to be heard a mile off. The bell of 
the Court House rang an alarm for the police. But two 
or three minutes were needed to break the door down. 
It gave way ; and the little band of assailants, rushing up 
the steps, were in conflict with the marshal and his men. 
A few pistol-shots were fired, a deputy marshal was killed, 
— though by whom, or by which side, was never ascer- 
tained, — and the assailants fell back. They were unsup- 
ported, had no reserves, and were not organized for a 
work of magnitude. The marshal's men fell back also 
within the building, apparently as much frightened as any- 
body, and stood on the stairway leading up to the floor 
where Burns was confined, impotently flourishing their cut- 
lasses in space. The doorway was regarded by both sides 
as a gate of death. The battered door alone occupied 
the empty space. At this moment Mr. A. Bronson Alcott 
walked deliberately up the steps, stood there a moment 
with habitual serenity, quietly descended, and remarked 
to a friend, — his voice preserving its even tone, and paus- 
ing, as its wont was, between the words, — " Do you not 
think we are wanted there ? " The invitation was not 
accepted ; for the police were on the ground. Higginson 
was badly bruised by clubs, his forehead laid open by a 
cutlass j others were beaten or arrested j the rest scattered. 
The whole affair lasted scarcely five minutes. The oppor- 
tunity was lost. That very night a force of marines was 
marched over from the Charlestown Navy Yard. In the 
morning a detachment of troops arrived from Fort Inde- 
pendence. No further demonstration against the authori- 
ties was made. The mayor of Boston applied for the aid 
36* 



426 THEODORE PARKER. 

of the State militia to preserve the order of the town. 
The militia held the streets, while United-States soldiers 
held the Court House. The city had the aspect of being 
under martial law. (' 

Mr. Parker's distress at the result of the night's work 
was extreme. On hearing that a black man had fired at 
Marshal Freeman, and narrowly missed him, he wrung his 
hands, and cried, "Why didn't he hit him ? why didn't he 
hit him ? " Sympathy with the fugitives was not confined 
to the abolitionists. Judges themselves counselled the 
removal of negroes when practicable. Even official souls 
were sorely exercised. More than one Massachusetts 
commissioner, probably, would have done what the wife of 
George S. Hillard did in the time of the Craft excitement, 
— shelter the victim of persecution beneath her own roof, — 
had he possessed that noble woman's courage. The heart 
of Boston was sounder than its head. The President, 
Franklin Pierce, showed eager interest in the proceedings, 
as frequent despatches from Washington testified. By his 
direction, the adjutant-general of the army repaired to 
Boston, authorized to call the two companies of United- 
States troops stationed at New York, if the State 
force should prove inadequate. Meanwhile the case pro- 
ceeded against the prisoner, in spite of the ability and 
zeal with which Messrs. Dana and Ellis managed the 
defence. At any other time, under any other circum- 
stances, the Virginia claimant would have been baffled ; 
for he failed wholly to make his points. As it was, hopes 
were entertained of a decision favorable to the prisoner. 
Offers to buy the man were made : the commissioner him- 
self drew the sale papers. But Suttle, after temporizing 
and vacillating, braced, probably, by encouraging hints from 
those high in authority, intimidated, perhaps, by threats 
from his Southern neighbors, that, if he compromised, it 
would be the worse for him, refused to close the bargain. 
The decision was predestinated by the powers that ruled. 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 427 

As the gloomy days went on, the black man's friends did 
their utmost to rescue him from bondage, and the North 
from shame. The vigorous hand which was ready for 
any work produced placard after placard to rouse the 
citizens. Seven are preserved, the most pungent of them 
bearing the Parker mark. The first simply announces, in 
short, sharp words, the arrest. The second calls on the 
citizens of Boston to see to it that no free citizen is 
dragged into slavery without trial by jury. A third sum- 
mons the "yeomanry of New England" to come and lend 
the moral weight of their presence, and the aid of their 
counsel, to the friends of justice and humanity in the city. 
A fourth brands the insult of employing murderers, prize- 
fighters, thieves, and blacklegs to aid in executing the 
atrocious law. A fifth warns the citizens to be on their 
guard against an attempt to carry off Burns after the com- 
missioner had declared him free. A sixth admonishes to 
be on the alert against lies and deceit ; a story being afloat 
that Burns had been ransomed. The last, issued May 31, 
calls on true Americans to be prepared for the worst : 
" Let there be no armed resistance ; but let the whole 
people turn out and line the streets, and look upon the 
shame and disgrace of Boston, and then go away and 
take measures to elect men to office who will better guard 
the honor of the state and the capital.'' 

No device was neglected that might help defeat the 
Burns claimant. Steps were taken to have him arrested, 
and held to bail, as Knight and Hughes had been, for 
kidnapping. There were blacks desperate enough to lie 
in wait for Suttle's appearance at the Court House to an- 
swer the charge, purposing his assassination ; but the 
scheme came to nothing. It was too late for expedients. 
Subsequently to the rendition, a portion of the Vigilance 
Committee organized, armed, and drilled regularly for 
resistance to the law. A yacht large enough for sea- 
service was also purchased and equipped. The captain 



428 THEODORE PARKER. 

who was put in charge of it said, that, if he had had the 
vessel in the time of the Sims case, he would have sunk 
" The Acorn " before she reached her Southern port. For- 
tunately these preparations were not needed. The Burns 
case was too costly and too perilous not to be the last ; 
but that case had to be pushed through to the end. All 
had been done that could be done at that crisis. 

The commissioner handed the man over to his claim- 
ant ; and on Friday, June 2, crowds of indignant people, 
thronging the sidewalks, filling porticoes and balconies, 
peering from windows, gazing from roofs, saw the helpless 
negro in the centre of a hollow square of armed ruffians — 
themselves guarded by companies of militia, protected by 
cannon — marched through Court Street and State Street 
to the wharf. To the least reflecting the scene was im- 
pressive. To those who recalled the traditions of the city, 
the history of that very street; who saw law and liberty 
writhing beneath the tread of the soldiers, and the soul of 
civilization itself gasping under the feet of the foes of all 
society ; who knew what it all portended if it went on, 
and feared the worst, — the scene was as awful as imagi- 
nation could make it. The Vigilance Committee ordered 
the streets in the neighborhood of the route of the 
procession to be draped in black, and the bells of the 
city to be tolled. This the mayor tried to prevent : when 
requested to allow it, he refused with vehement stamp 
of foot. But the committee detailed men for the service, 
and it was pretty generally done. One of them obtained 
the key of Brattle-street Church ; let in and locked in a 
friend : so that bell was made to sound a dirge. As a last 
means of creating confusion, and effecting a rescue, the 
new fire-alarm was struck just as the procession was 
about to move. The engines tore down State Street 
through the lines of soldiers and the crowds of citizens. 
It is a wonder that people were not killed in the tumult ; 
that blood was not soilled in the fury : but the sudden 



THE FIGHT WITH SLA VER Y. 429 

irruption passed ; the lines closed up ; and the iron phalanx 
was unbroken. They who witnessed the scene of removal 
will never forget it. How one great soul felt, thousands 
learned at Music^Iall on the next Sunday, when " The New 
Crime against Humanity" was described in words that 
woke the echoes of history, and sent ominous thunder 
rolling through the galleries of time. 

The tragedy over, the farce began. On June 7, 
Judge B. R. Curtis charged the grand jury, in substance, 
as follows : That not only those who were present and 
actually obstructed, resisted, and opposed, and all who were 
present leagued in the common design, but all who, though 
absent, did procure, counsel, command, or abet others, and 
all who, by indirect means, by evincing an express liking, 
gave approbation or assent to the design, were liable as 
principals ; and it was of no importance that the advice 
or directions were departed from in respect to the pre- 
cise time or place or mode or means of committing the 
offence. This was aimed at a few individuals ; and, under 
it, indictments were found against Theodore Parker, Wen- 
dell Phillips, Martin Stowell, Thomas Wentworth Higgin- 
son, John Morrison, Samuel T. Proudman, and John C. 
Cluer. Parker was arrested Nov. 29. Time for the trials 
was fixed, — April 3, 1855. A formidable array of counsel 
appeared for the defence, — John P. Hale and Charles 
M. Ellis for Mr. Parker; William L. Burt, John A. An- 
drew, H. F. Durant, for the rest. But the trials did not 
proceed. Mr. Parker's counsel moved that the indictment 
against him be quashed. A brief argument sufficed. The 
Court pronounced the indictments bad, and ordered that 
against Stowell to be dismissed. The district-attorney, 
Benjamin F. Hallett, entered a nolle prosequi in the other 
cases ; and the whole affair ended. " Well, Mr. Parker," 
said Commissioner Benjamin F. Hallett, "you have crept 
out through a knot-hole this time." — "I will knock a 
bigger hole next time," was the gruff reply. 



430 THEODORE PARKER. 

The result was anticipated. Mr. Parker wrote to his 
friend Desor, on the 19th of November, that he should not 
be indicted. He was half sorry ; for he longed for an 
opportunity to make a speech ; but, on the whole, was glad 
of the result, preferring to be rid of the trouble and vexa- 
tion, and to have the city and state spared the shame. 
He did not mean, however, that the persecutors should 
escape. Three or four days after the judge had delivered 
his charge, Parker's line of defence was marked out, the 
fortifications sketched, the place of the batteries deter- 
mined, arms collected. The quashing of the indict- 
ments did not disarm him. Opportunity to address the 
court was lost ; but opportunity to address the people 
remained. The great issue between free institutions and 
slavery was open, and was likely to remain open. Other 
trials might be expected. The fortresses of Liberty needed 
strengthening ; and he set about the preparation of that 
remarkable " Defence," — less a defence than an historical 
review, and muscular statement of principles, — which has 
only passed into neglect with a thousand other things 
because the " God of battles " would endure trifling no 
longer, and called more terrible servants into the field. 
The summer of 1855 was devoted to this burning volume 
of two hundred and twenty pages. It is a monument of 
historical learning, as well as a thrilling record of events 
and a stern judgment on men. The portion that con- 
cerned himself personally is small as compared with that 
which concerned his fellow-citizens. They, and not he, 
were the persons assailed ; and the intention was to plant 
convictions in their minds in a way to last forever. The 
slave power was ranked with the most arrant of despotisms ; 
its measures were classed with the most infamous deeds 
of the most infamous times ; its servants were numbered 
with the meanest tools of tyranny. 

" Spirits of tyrants," he cries, quoting the language of a ser- 
mon preached after the surrender of Sims, — " spirits of 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 431 

tyrants ! I look down to you. Shade of Cain, you great first 
murderer ! forgive me that I forgot your power, and did not 
remember that you were parent of so long a line. I will open 
the tombs, and bring up most hideous tyrants from the dead. 

" Come hither, Herod the wicked ! Let me look on thy face. 
No : go ! Thou wert a heathen. 

" Come, Nero, thou awful Roman emperor ! come up. No : 
thou wast drunk with power, schooled in Roman depravity. 
Thou hadst, beside, the example of thy fancied gods. 

" Come hither, St. Dominic ! come, Torquemada ! — fathers 
of the Inquisition. Merciless monsters ! seek your equal here. 
No : pass by. You are no companions for such men as these. 
You were the servants of atheistic popes, of cruel kings. 

" Come up, thou heap of wickedness, George Jeffreys ! thy 
hands deep purple with the blood of thy murdered fellow-men. 
Awful and accursed shade ! two hundred years thy name has 
been pilloried in face of the world, and thy memory gibbeted 
before mankind. Come, shade of a judicial butcher ! let us 
see how thou wilt compare with those who kidnap men in 
Boston. 

"What! dost thou shudder? thou turn back? These not 
thy kindred ? It is true, George Jeffreys ; and these are not 
thy kin. It was a great bribe that tempted thee. Thou only 
struckst at men accused of crime, not at men accused only of 
their birth. Thou wouldst not se,nd a man into bondage for 
two pounds. I will not rank thee with men, who in Boston, 
for ten dollars, would enslave a negro now. Rest still, Herod ! 
be quiet. Nero ! sleep, St. Dominic ! and sleep, O Torquemada ! 
in your fiery jail. Sleep, Jeffreys ! underneath the ' altar of the 
church ' which seeks with Christian charity to hide your hated 
bones." 

These tremendous words were spoken soberly, by a 
man quite as ready to have them judged by the laws of 
truth as by the rules of rhetoric. They who must look at 
deeds through the imagination ; who need the illusion, if 
not the enchantment, of distance, and therefore credit an- 
tiquity with all the great examples of either fame or infamy, 
— read them as the ravings of a fanatic. But they who 



432 THEODORE PARKER. 

looked at deeds, as he did, in the light of absolute right- 
eousness ; whose imagination was filled with the shapes 
of eternity, and therefore knew but one standard, — the 
supreme law, — read them with awe, as the judgments of 
a prophet. Mr. Parker was not playing on the passions 
of his audience ; for he deliberately repeated the language 
four years after it was first uttered, in a book designed to 
be read. He was not conscious of dealing in exaggera- 
tions : he was merely applying the doctrine which he 
had vindicated against the objections of Dr. Channing 
years before, — that the individual conscience enunciated 
the supreme law, or would if allowed to speak. By that 
doctrine he was justified with all who accept it. The disci- 
ples of a different school of philosophy — which studies 
human nature by other methods, and is disposed to ques- 
tion the accounts of human monsters as well as human 
paragons — may pronounce his verdicts unjust, on the 
ground that they disregarded the complexities of motive, 
and weighed in rude scales the delicate moral qualities 
which make up character : these men are very far from 
being moral enthusiasts ; they are apt to be moral neutrals, 
if not moral sceptics. Parker's invective met with small 
sympathy from the multitude of respectable people who 
sincerely believed the Union to be in danger from the 
Northern spirit of liberty, and felt that the return of a few 
negroes to the State wherein they were born was an evil of 
infinitely less magnitude ; and the personal friends of the 
judge and the commissioner, who knew them to be amia- 
ble, conscientious, and humane gentlemen, — certainly no 
more inclined to cruelty or conscious turpitude than their 
neighbors, — hooted at the preacher's arraignment of them 
as the wildest folly. Mr. Parker may have been wrong in 
his psychology; but we cannot see evidence that he was 
malignant in his temper. He had strong moral antipathies j 
but was, personally, no hater of men. He detested deeds ; 
the doers of them were hateful to him : but, as a man, he 



THE FIGHT WITH SLAVERY. 433 

felt for them no animosity. True, he never forgot, and he 
never permitted others to forget, a minister's unfortunate 
expression of willingness to return a near kinsman to the 
slavery he might have fled from, rather than imperil the 
national unity. He pursued certain prominent men of 
Boston with remorseless severity, holding them up to 
public scorn, thrusting acts of theirs into people's faces, 
till they seemed to be congested masses of turpitude. 
Theirs, however, he regarded as public deeds, which he 
fastened upon and exhibited for the purpose of riveting 
attention to principles, not for the purpose of blackening 
characters. He knew the force of reiteration and empha- 
sis in making things remembered. No man ever tried 
harder, against a vehement and sarcastic temper, to sepa- 
rate the personal from the impersonal feeling. No man 
ever tried harder to suppress personal feeling altogether. 
That he wholly succeeded cannot be claimed; that he 
occasionally spoke bitterly, even sneeringly, of his "ene- 
mies, persecutors, and slanderers," cannot be denied : 
but he did pray God to forgive them, and to turn their 
hearts \ nay, he himself was singularly ready to forgive 
on the slightest show of concession, and would do any 
thing in his power to turn their hearts. Candor must 
grant this. May not candor grant, besides, that, if he was 
guilty of unjust judgments, he was led thereto as much, 
at the very least, by the intensity of his moral feeling as 
by the passionateness of his native temper ? and, if this 
be so, something may be forgiven him. In these days, 
excess of conscience is not common. The levelling pro- 
cess, which brings all characters to the same grade, and 
that a low one, goes on fast : appeals to interest are more 
frequent and more urgent than appeals to honor : " senti- 
ment " of the exalted kind is not in fashion anywhere : the 
pure dictates of the moral law are losing their venerable- 
ness. Parker did believe in them ; demanded that all 
should believe ; threatened woe to all who flouted them. If 
37 



434 THEODORE PARKER. 

he dealt in exaggerations, they were grand ones : they were 
the exaggerations of faith. To them we owe, in part, the 
power of the faith which at last saved the nation; for, 
when the civil war came, the value of conscience became 
clearer. Few then wished that lighter emphasis had been 
laid on it in previous years. Exaggerations of language 
sounded faint enough beside the roar of cannon. He 
who had uttered the boldest prophecy was seen to be the 
calmest judge. Instead of holding him answerable for 
sin because he held up to execration ideas and their rep- 
resentatives, men were more disposed to reproach them- 
selves with faithlessness because they had rejected the 
warning. 

The interior.history of the slave-struggle proves that 
Mr. Parker's share in it was large and important. That 
his soul was in it, was, therefore, a necessity ; and the soul 
of such a man, once roused, does not stop, when turning 
over the soil of the stubborn fallow-land, to weep over the 
daisy his iron ploughshare has bruised. To him sin was a 
sinner ; malignity was a man ; the Prince of Darkness 
was a gentleman. If he loaded his rifle with ball, it was 
because he was a good soldier. Had more such ball- 
cartridges as his been driven home, the thunder of a na- 
tion's guns might have been spared. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE KANSAS WAR. 



The history of the struggle to people Kansas with true 
children of New England, so as to secure its admission 
into the Union as a free State, cannot be told here. Mr. 
Parker has told it so well, that reference to his discourses 
is sufficient. There is room now only for a succinct 
account of his own efforts in this new field. From the 
nature of the case, his personal activity in the fresh emer- 
gency was less than in the cases of fugitive-slave hunting 
in his own parish. Kansas was very far off ; and a press 
of duties kept him in Boston. But, as far as his influence 
went, it was at the service of the cause. His counsel was 
valuable, his encouragement, his generosity in giving, and 
his aid in collecting money. 

From the Journal. 

April 2, 1856. 

Saw the Kansas party go off, Dr. Charles H. Sanborn at 
their head, — about forty, nearly half of them women and 
children. There were twenty copies of "Sharp's Rights of 
the People" \n their hands, of the new and improved edition, 
and divers Colt's six-shooters also. As the bell rang for the 
train to move (at five and a half, Providence Railroad), they 
were singing, — 

" When I can read my title clear." 

One of the verses would have some meaning : — 

435 



436 ' THEODORE PARKER. 

" Should earth against my soul engage, 
And hellish darts be hurled, 
Then I can smile at Satan's rage, 
And face a frowning world." 

But what a comment were the weapons of that company on 
the boasted democracy of America ! Those rifles and pistols 
were to defend their soil from the American Government, 
which wishes to plant slavery in Kansas. Compare the settler 
from Boston in 1656, in 1756, and then in 1856. 

From Letters to Miss Hunt. 

Sept. 4, 1856. 

Congress passed the Army Bill without the proviso : so the 
President can use his money to push slavery in at the point 
of the bayonet. There is continual fighting in Kansas. You 
remember Rev. Mr. Nute from Kansas. His brother-in-law, 
Mr. Hipps, came from Leavenworth to Lawrence, staid a day 
or two at Nute's, left his sick wife, and started for home 
without weapons. A ruffian shot him dead, scalped him, and 
then exhibited the scalp in Leavenworth, and said, " I went 

out for the scalp of a d d abolitionist, and I have got one." 

Of course, the government likes this ; " The Post " likes it ; 
and the respectability of Boston must say, " Served him 
right ! " You will hear of yet bloodier work in Kansas. Hig- 
ginson has gone there. But for your visit to Europe, I should 
have spent my vacation in Kansas. Next summer will proba- 
bly find me there. . . . 

Brooks is drunk all the time now, and is quite cowed down 
with the reputation for cowardice fixed on him. It is not 
thought gentlemanly for a Northern man to speak of him in 
the presence of Southern ladies. Such is the wrath of his 
friends, that they engaged a mob of rowdies to insult Burlin- 
game, — spit in his face, &c. ; and then, if he resisted, to kill 
hi?n : so Burlingame's friends kept him out of the city, not 
letting him know the news ; and he was not there to vote 
against the Army Bill. . . . 

I still think the election of Fremont presents the only 
chance for a peaceful settlement of the ghastly question ; but 
every day I feel less confidence in such a settlement, even with 
his election. The wrath of the South is too hot to allow of a 



THE KANSAS WAR. 437 

permanent union. I would gladly separate from them to-mor- 
row, were it not that we should leave four million Americans in 
bonds. Set them free, I would vote for dissolution to-morrow. 
We could take all north of the Potomac and Ohio, and all west 
of the Mississippi, and let the miserable rowdies have Virginia, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Missouri, 
Louisiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky. 

From Letters to Mrs. Apthorp. 

Sept. ii, 1856. 

Mr. Nute is in the hands of the ruffians. We fear he is 
hanged. The accounts are awful from Kansas. Five persons 
were shot after they had surrendered. Scalping is as common 
as with other savages. . . . 

We are now in a civil war. I went to a Kansas meeting at 

Cambridge last night. R. W. E. was expected, but did not 

come till near nine ; others wasting the time before in idle 

laughter and jokes. Yet good things were said. E. was not 

happy, but said many good things, as always. He would send 

out the sergeant-at-arms to compel all Americans to return 

forthwith, lest by and by there be no country left for them. I 

know not what is before us, but augur evil, — evil, and then 

triumph. 

Sept. 19, 1856. 

Things look better in Kansas. The ruffians have been 
worsted in some fights. Lawrence is well fortified now ; has a 
fort that will hold a thousand men. Dr. Howe and others 
raised five thousand dollars one day last week to buy Sharp's 
rifles. We want a thousand rifles, and got two hundred in 
one day. Nute is now at large ; but- the particulars I know 
not. Lying is common on both sides, I fear: I know "mis- 
takes " are not rare in such times. But the government is 
backing down. . . . 

It is writ down in the bond that Sumner is to go to the Sen- 
ate : the Know-Nothing Convention at Worcester unanimously 
passed a resolve to that effect. But we shall see what we shall see. 

Sennott says President Pierce is drunk every day. I had 
intelligence of his being solemnly intoxicated on a most impor- 
tant occasion last May ; but now he is gone over, it is said, to 
cups, and cups only. Really, born rulers are not much worse 
than the elected. 

37* 



438 THEODORE PARKER. 

Gov. Reeder has come out for Fremont : his long letter is 
in " The New- York Evening Post " of yesterday. Geary's 
inaugural speech is just telegraphed to us. He demands obe- 
dience to the Territorial legislature till its laws are repealed 
(repudiation by the people is no repeal of the border-ruffian 
" laws," I suppose) ; but promises to protect all, without respect 
of party, and calls on armed bands to disperse, or quit the Terri- 
tory. He has dignified with the title of " militia " the compa- 
nies of Southern marauders whom Shannon had furnished 
with arms, banners, protection, and whiskey, and set to scalp 
the peaceful inhabitants of Kansas. Things look much better 
for Kansas. The Emigrant Aid Society has forever prevented 
it from becoming a slave State ; for, if this company had not 
been at work, the Missourians and others would have flocked 
in, and made its institutions to suit the South. Now I have no 
fears of its future. 

We had a meeting of women at our house Monday, p.m., 
and have raised about a hundred and twenty dollars amongst 
them for clothing for Kansas ; and, besides, any quantity of 
women are at work making clothes for the men. 

To Miss Hunt. 

Sept. 21, 1856. 

. . . Yesterday I omitted the chapter of St. James as morn- 
ing lesson, and introductory to a sermon on Franklin, and, 
instead, read from a new epistle of St. Ephraim (Nute), written 
a fortnight before in Kansas, and telling of his captivity and 
cruel treatment. There was an immense audience ; seats all 
full, and men leaning against the wall. Dr. Bowditch came 
and suggested that a contribution should be taken up at the 
door. I mentioned it ; and now three hundred dollars are in 
my drawer for Mr. Nute and his fellow-apostles. It was not 
ten cents apiece for the audience, but a pretty sum for him 

and them. 

To Mrs. Afthorp. 

Oct. 6, 1856. 

... I don't feel so confident of success as a week ago. 
Even if Fremont be elected, I have terrible fears for the sound- 
ness of his advisers' and of his own course. ... I never 
took such interest in an election. In 1840, when the nation 
shook with agitation, I took no part, no interest : there was no 



THE KANSAS WAR. 439 

idea at issue which I cared a pin for. The nation was tired of 
being on one side, and wanted to turn over, and did so with 
much noise. But now there is a great question : we are to 
decide a programme of principles, which involves a long train 
of measures, between such prosperity as we have not ever seen 
and such misery and ruin as we never feared. There is a bat- 
tle with swords going on at Kansas, with votes all over the 
land. Kansas is the centre of the continent. Put one foot of 
the compasses in the middle of Kansas where the Republican 
and the Snaky Rivers meet, let the other rest on Boston, then 
sweep the circle round, it touches (or comes close to) Quebec, 
the middle of Hudson's Bay, the mouth of the Oregon, San 
Francisco, the city of Mexico, and Havana. Now, the battle 
between Freedom and Slavery is for the physical heart of 
America, and, of course, for its limbs ; but the actual battle is 
not less for the spiritual heart of America. 

To Miss Hunt. 

Nov. 4, 1856 (Night). 

It is election-day. We have heard only from Boston and a 
few towns round about. All the news is good so far. To-mor- 
row, at nine, I will give the result as far as known : so you 
shall have the earliest (and latest) news. 

It is a day not less critical in our future history than the 
4th of July, 1776, for the past. This morning there were three 
alternatives before the nation : 1. The North might put down 
slavery by a vote, peacefully, yet securely, though step by step ; 
2. The North might allow freedom to be put down by a vote, 
peacefully, yet securely, though step by step ; 3. The North 
and South must have a civil war. So it was at sunrise : at sun- 
set there maybe only a choice between the two latter, — slavery, 
or battle. If the North locks horns with the South, I know 
which is crowded into the ditch. But, in 1776, the worst part of 
England was in America : so now the worst part of the North 
is at the South. 

To the Same. 

Nov. 16, 1856. 

I am more than ever of opinion that we must settle this 
question in the old Anglo-Saxon way, — by the sword. There 
are two constitutions for America, — one written on parchment, 



440 THEODORE PARKER. 

and laid up at Washington ; the other also on parchment, but on 
the head of a drum. It is to this we must appeal, and before 
.long. I make all my pecuniary arrangements with the expecta- 
tion of civil war. I buy no books ; have not orders out for fifty 
dollars, and commonly have at least five hundred dollars on 
order in all parts of the world. 

To Mrs. Apthorp. 

Nov. ii, 1856. 

... This morning, Mr. Rhett of South Carolina is out with 
a letter to the governor of that great State of three hundred and 
eighty-five thousand slaves, and two hundred and eighty-three 
thousand white men, recommending dissolution. South Caroli- 
na will nullify at all hazards. Gen. Quattlebum has again taken 
the field, — of newspapers, — and sheds ink and valor without 
discretion. I don't believe we shall hold together long. The 
union is not by internal cohesion, but outside pressure. The 
hoop which holds these silly staves together is no thicker than 
a dollar-bill : a drop of blood, nay, a little ink, will weaken it 
so that all falls to pieces. I doubt that we see ten years 
without bloodshed. ... I don't see the immediate future of 
America : the remote future appears more clear and distinct. 
This new administration will make its attack on Cuba, I take 
it. Mexico is falling to pieces ; and Jonathan must be there to 
pick up the fragments. The American Government has re- 
fused to give a passport to a colored man, on the ground that 
he was not a citizen, though born here. I mean to petition the 
Legislature of Massachusetts to pass a law directing our officials 
to furnish the colored citizens of Massachusetts with such pass- 
ports as will be sufficient. . . . 

To the Same. 

Dec 29, 1856. 

. . . We need Sumner at Washington just now. 

" One blast upon his bugle-horn were worth a thousand men." 

For the Republicans apologize and explain, and say they " are 
not an abolition party, not an antislavery party, not opposed to 
the extension of slavery:" they "only mean to restore the 
Missouri Compromise." Men talk hopefully about Kansas. 



THE KANSAS WAR. 441 

Certainly all is peaceful there at present ; but I know the 
enemy too well. 

" Then most we dread the tempest's wrath 
When most we seem secure." 

To Miss Hunt. 

Oct. 31, 1857. 

. . . Sumner's friends who have seen him think it would be 
ruinous for him to return this winter. His health is not much 
better now than when he left Paris, I should judge. I think 
Sumner is killed, so far as usefulness is concerned : more mer- 
ciful if the blow had been fatal at once. George Hillard thinks 
he had better not come back. There will be nothing of any 
importance done this session, — nothing about Kansas, you 
know ; about Cuba, nothing - ; nothing about the slave-trade, or 
Dred Scott decision. If I were in Sumner's place, when Con- 
gress came together, I would be there. If I could sit but an 
hour a day, that hour I would be there. 

I saw old Josiah Ouincy in the street to-day. He has a 
backbone, which, old as he is, sticks out through his great-coat. 

To Mrs. Apthorp. 

December, 1857. 

. . . The little class of well-educated men, by falseness to their 
position, have lost the confidence of the people ; and a few men 
with more conscience, though often with less culture, command 
the homage of the very crowds which educated hypocrisy in 
vain attempted to cajole and win. See what reception is given 
to Beecher and Chapin ! — men of not great intellect or great, 
knowledge, but inspired with the progressive spirit of the age, 
and so standing in intimate relations with the people. 

See the success of Sumner and Phillips ! the triumph of 
Emerson, who has a more glorious history than any American 
of this generation ! Prescott has changed no man's opinion. 
Bancroft has elevated no man. Irving has made men laugh at 
his fun, and rejoice in the precious beauty which blossoms in 
his field and his garden : that is all. Webster has connected 
himself with nothing except hunkerism : his symbol is his plas- 
ter bust ; but his calf-bound volumes of speeches are as dead 
as the brass of the Colossus at Rhodes, which an earthquake 



442 THEODORE PARKER. 

threw down, and a Jew bought, — a load also for nine hundred 
camels: he affects no man's opinion. Clay was the tariff, 
which is now dead, — an obsolete idea, but a curse, while it 
lived, to the manufacturers who bought it of him. Calhoun was 
slavery : the greatest sophist the nation ever knew was prop- 
erly devoted to the worst institution now in the growing world. 
The dead tariff will soon be buried also, and on top of Henry 
Clay ; slavery will go to the Devil, and take with it the mem- 
ory of John C. Calhoun, a great sophist, and of many little 
sophists at the same time : but Emerson has touched the deep- 
est strings on the human harp, and, ten centuries after he is 



Thus Theodore Parker took into his heart his country's 
sorrow and need, not sparing himself a pang. He felt the 
whole situation ; let no aspect of it pass him by ; but 
exhausted, so far as it was in him, even the possibilities 
of agony. The tremendous facts came before him, every 
one in the fulness of minute detail. The tremendous 
issues unrolled themselves before his prophetic gaze. He 
followed every move of the politicians : no trick of .the 
party managers escaped him. He had his eye on every 
public man; watched with breathless interest each new- 
comer on the stage ; and weighed, in scales that rarely 
erred, the persons who undertook the control of public 
affairs. The following letters show the temper of his 
own mind, and also the view he took of the good citizen's 
duty : — 

To Hon. W. H Seward. 

Boston, May 19, 1854. 
Dear Sir, — It seems to me that the country has now got 
to such a pass, that the people must interfere and take things 
out of the hands of the politicians who now control them, or else 
tfie American State will be lost. Allow me to show in extenso 
what I mean. Here are two distinct elements in the nation ; 
viz., Freedom and Slavery. The two are hostile in nature, 
and therefore mutually invasive : both are organized in the in- 
stitutions of the land. These two are not equilibrious : so the 



THE KANSAS WAR. 443 

nation is not a figure of equilibrium. It is plain (to me) that 
these two antagonistic forces cannot long continue in this 
condition. There are three possible modes of adjusting 
the balance, all conceivable : — 

I. There may be a separation of the two elements : then 
each may form a whole, equilibrious, and so without that cause 
of dissolution in itself, and have a national unity of action, 
which is indispensable. Or, — 

II. Freedom may destroy slavery : then the whole nation 
continues as an harmonious whole, with national unity of action, 
the result of national unity of place. Or, — 

III. Slavery may destroy freedom, and then the nation 
become an integer, only a unit of despotism. This, of course, 
involves a complete revolution of all the national ideas and 
7iational institutions. It must be an industrial despotism, — a 
strange anomaly. Local self-government must give place to 
centralization of national power ; the State courts be sucked 
up by that enormous sponge, the Supreme Court of the 
United States ; and individual liberty be lost in the monstrous 
mass of democratic tyranny. Then America goes down to 
utter ruin, covered with worse shame than is heaped on Sodom 
and Gomorrah ; for we also, with horrid indecency, shall have 
committed the crime against nature in our Titanic lust of 
wealth and power. 

I. Now, I see no likelihood of the first condition being ful- 
filled. Two classes rule the nation : — 

I. The mercantile men, who want money ; and, 2, The po- 
litical men, who want power. There is a strange unanimity 
between these two classes. The mercantile men want money 
as a means of power : the political want power as a means of 
money. Well, while the Union affords money to the one, and 
power to the other, both will be agreed ; will work together to 
" save the Union." And as neither of the two has any great 
political ideas, or reverence for the higher law of God, both will 
unite in what serves the apparent interest of these two : that 
will be in favor of slavery and of centralized power. Every 
inroad which the Federal Government makes on the nation will • 
be acceptable to these two classes. 

II. Then, considering dissolution as out of the question, is 
freedom likely to terminate slavery ? It was thought so by the 



444 THEODORE PARKER. 

founders of the Federal institutions and by the people at large. 
Few steps were taken in that direction, — the ordinance of 1787, 
the abolition of the African slave-trade : that is all. For 
forty-six years, not a step. 

III. The third condition is the one now most promising to. end 
the matter. See the steps consummated, or only planned : 1. The 
Gadsden Treaty; 2. The extension of slavery into Nebraska; 

3. The restoration of slavery to the free States, either by 
"decision " of the Supreme Court, or legislation of Congress ; 

4. Acquisition of Cuba, Hayti, &c, as a new arena for slavery ; 

5. The re-establish7nent of the Africa7i slave-trade; 6. The 
occupancy of the other parts of North America and South 
America. When all this is done, there will be unity of action, 
unity of idea. " Auferre, trucidare, raphe falsis nominibus 
imperium ; atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant." 

Now, this must not be. // must not be 7 The nation must 
rouse itself. I have been waiting a long time for some event to 
occur which would blow so loud a horn that it should waken the 
North, startling the farmer at his plough and the mechanic in 
his shop. I believe the time is coming : so I want to have a 
convention of all the free States at Buffalo on Tuesday, the 
4th of July next, to consider the state of the Union, 
and to take measures (1) to check, (2) to terminate, the enslave- 
ment of men in America. I wish you would advise me in this 
matter; for I confess I look to you with a great deal of confi- 
dence in these times of such peril to freedom. 

If you like, I should be glad if you would show this letter to 
Mr. Chase and Mr. Sumner. Believe me 

Respectfully and truly yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

To John P. Hale. . 

Boston, May 23, 1854. 

My dear Mr. HAle, — You have helped me in many emer- 
gencies ; and I want a little more advice just now. It seems to 
me that there should be a convention from all the free States 
on the 4th of July to organize for action against slavery as we 
have' never done before. If this is not done, we are ruined, 
and the country becomes one great slave power. I suggest a 
convention at Buffalo, Pittsburg, or elsewhere, to consider the 



THE KANSAS WAR. 445 

present alarming condition of the country, and to take measures 
(1) to check and (2) to terminate this matter of slavery. If the 
South will not let it down gradually, we must let it down by the 
run. Please let me know what you think. 
Yours faithfully, 

Theodore Parker. 
Hon. Mr. Hale. 

To Charles Sumner. 

St. Albans, Vt., Feb. 16, 1856. 
Dear Sumner, — The petitions are all going very well. Tell 
me any thing else to do. I wrote to Sandusky, Milwaukee, 
Madison, Syracuse, and divers other places, and got the thing 
started. 

Who is to be nominated for President ? — by the Democrats, 
the Republicans ? 

Don't forget to introduce a bill providing books in all military 
ports of the United States. 

Yours truly, 

Theo. Parker. 

Banks's election is the first victory of the Northern idea since 

1787. 

ToH. Wilson. 

Boston, July 7, 1855. 

My dear Wilson, — I cannot let another day pass by 
without sending you a line — all I have time for — to thank you 
for the noble service you have done for the cause of freedom. 
You stand up most manfully and heroically, and do battle for 
the right. I do not know how to thank you enough. You do 
nobly at all places, all times. .If the rest of your senatorial term 
be like the past, we shall see times such as we only wished for, 
but dared not hope as yet. There is a North, a real North, 
quite visible now. God bless you for your services, and keep 
you ready for more ! 

Heartily yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

To Passmore Williamson, Esq. 

Dublin, N.H., Aug. 21, 1855. 
Dear Sir, — Your noble action and the wicked treatment 
you receive for it give me the right to address you, though I am 
38 



446 THEODORE PARKER. 

an entire stranger. I cannot forbear expressing to you my 
admiration for your conduct, and the hope that you wjll con- 
tinue faithful and undaunted in the jail which the infamous 
court condemns you to. I wish I could bear a part of the suf- 
fering, and so relieve you from a little of that pain ; but I can 
only send you an expression of my heartfelt sympathy, and 
thanks for your noble manhood. I suppose there must be 
much more imprisonment and other judicial outrage before the 
people are wakened from their sleep. May endless blessings 
be upon you is the wish and prayer of 
Yours sincerely, 

Theodore Parker. 

To Charles Sumner, Washington. 

Burlington, Vt., May 21, 1856. 

My dear Sumner, — God bless you for the brave words 
you spoke the other day, — and have always spoken, — of which 
I hear report in the papers ! Send it to me in full as soon as 
you can. 

I have been ill (in head), and scarce able to do any thing for a 
month ; else I should have written you before now. I am a little 
better just now ; but still my head feels like an apple which has 
been frozen all winter, and is now thawed out. I am in Ver- 
mont, lecturing on the condition of the country. Pierce is in 
open rebellion against the people : he has committed the high- 
est treason against the people, the worst form of lese-majeste. 

I have long wanted to thank you for your services in that 
matter of the Danish-Sound affair. It is quite clear that you 
are right; that the twofold executive — presidential and senato- 
rial — has no more right to annul a treaty than to annul the 
tariff law, the law against piracy, or any other statute. Why did 
nobody ever think of this before ? 

There are three wicked things now going on in the United 
States : — 

1. Exterminating the Indians in Oregon, &c. 

2. Filibustering against Central America "and the rest of 
mankind." 

3. Extending slavery into Kansas and everywhere else. 
Then, I take it, the free-State men will be iminediately put 
down, unless Congress comes to their aid. What can they do 



THE KANSAS WAR. 447 

— a handful of them, without arms, no officers — against the 
border ruffians, eight thousand or ten thousand strong, armed 
by the United States, and officered by the soldiers of our 
wicked army ? Can nothing be done at Washington ? WiH 
nothing arouse the people at the North ? 

Tell me what you think of the candidates for Republican 
nomination ? Here is my list of oreferences if I could make 
the President : — 

1. Seward. 

2. Chase. 

3. Hale. 

But I take it none of these could be elected in the present 
state of affairs. If we come to actual war, Seward would be 
chosen, I think ; but not now, in the present state of things. 
Do tell me how far is Fremont reliable ? God bless you ! 
Ever yours, 

Theo. Parker. 
I shall send you a speech before long. 

To Hon. John P. Hale, Washington. 

Boston, May 23, 1856. 
My dear Mr. Hale, — Do write and tell me how Sumner 
is getting on. How much is the noble fellow wounded ? 
Give him my most sympathizing regards and love. I wish I 
could have taken the blows on my head, and not he ; at least, 
half of them. Will the Senate do nothing about it ? Think of 
the scoundrel Brooks let off on bail of five hundred dollars ! I 
shall go to the State House as soon as the House meets to see 
if I can stir up that body to any action in the matter. 
Yours truly and heartily, 

Theo. Parker. 

To John P. Hale. 

Galesburg, Oct. 21, 1856. 
My dear Mr. Hale, — I'm glad I am not a senator this 
year. You win your " Hon." pretty dear this season. Stump- 
ing is no joke. I heard your opponent this afternoon, — Doug- 
las. He was considerably drunk, and made one of the most 
sophisticated and deceitful speeches I ever listened to. It was 
mere brutality in respect of morals, and sophistry for logic, in 
the style and manner of a low blackguard. 



443 • THEODORE PARKER. 

\ 

His enemies said he seldom or never did so ill. But there is 
a good deal of rough power in his evil face. I never saw him 
before. 

I don't know how you think the election will turn out ; but I 
look for defeat. I hope otherwise, but still think so.. The 
battle is not won by our carrying the electoral tickets by popu- 
lar vote. If Buchanan gets a hundred and forty-eight elect- 
ors, a million dollars, I think, might be raised to buy the one 
hundred and forty-ninth. I think there are thirty men in Bos- 
ton who would give five thousand dollars apiece to see it 
done. It is the most important crisis in our national history. 
No presidential election ever turned on such great questions. 
It is despotism or democracy which the people vote for. I 
wish the true issue was represented by the banners and 
mottoes. 

Buchanan's friends would bear this in front of all : " No 
Unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happi- 
ness ; " " The Declaration of Independence a Lie ; " " No Higher 
Law." Then might follow, in historical order, " Slavery in 
Kansas," " Slavery in Cuba," " Slavery in all the Territories," 
" Slavery in all the Free States," " Bondage for Niggers," 
" Bondage for Poor Whites," " Slavery for ' Greasy Mechan- 
ics,' " " No Free Schools," " No Free Press," " No Free 
Pulpit," " No Free Speech," " No Free Man." 

If Buchanan is President, I think the Union does not hold 
out his four years : it must end in civil war, which I have been 
preparing for these six months past. I buy no books except 
for pressing need. Last year I bought fifteen hundred dollars' 
worth : this year I shall not order two hundred dollars' worth. I 
may want money for cannons. Have you any plan in case we 
are defeated ? Of course the principles and measures of the 
administration will remain unchanged, and the mode of execu- 
tion will be more intense and rapid. God save the United 
States of America ! 

Yours faithfully, 

Theo. Parker. 

P. S. — I want, before you go to Congress, to borrow your 
' copy of Force's " American Archives ; " also I want you to 
come and dine with me, and see some politicians. 



THE KANSAS WAR. 449 

The Kansas war brought to the front a colossal figure, — 
John Brown. This would not be the place to tell his 
story, even if it had not been well told already by James 
Redpath, and partially by F. B. Sanborn in the pages of 
"The Atlantic Monthly" of April and July, 1872; but 
something must be said about him, — enough to throw light 
on the character of his friends, especially of one of them, 
— Mr. Parker. That such a person sought Parker, and 
was trusted by him, is an incident worth pondering over. 
John Brown was fifty-seven years old when Parker first 
met him. He had lived in several places ; had engaged in 
several occupations ; had experienced changes of fortune ; 
but had remained, himself steadfast and unchangeable in 
character. The State of Connecticut gave him his Puri- 
tan blood ; Ohio imparted, to the boy the influence of her 
territorial and social breadth ; Massachusetts made the 
young man acquainted with the highest form of free civil- 
ization ; New York trained the man of middle age for 
the work he was set to do ; Kansas gave him a field of 
operations j Virginia, a chance for martyrdom. Through 
the kindness of a kinsman, he was educated at an excel- 
lent private school, and purposed entering the ministry ; but 
poverty, and weakness of sight, compelled him to abandon 
a career for which seriousness of mind, and weight of 
character, made him peculiarly fit. He was profoundly 
religious after the old-fashioned Orthodox fashion ; had an 
awful sense of divine realities, and an implicit faith in the 
divine decrees. The Bible was to him God's word ; life, 
God's gift ; eternity, God's recompense. His desire, from 
the first, was not to live as was unseemly in the presence 
of eternal law. He turned from the ministry with regret, 
but like a true Puritan, who knew that the ministry was 
only one calling out of many, and returned to his original 
occupation as a tanner ; dropping that later to become a 
shepherd in Ohio, — a pursuit which has had fascinations 
before for men of high resolves. At the age of forty-six 
38* 



450 THEODORE PARKER. 

we find him in Massachusetts again as agent of the Ohio 
sheep-farmers and wool-growers, who, wishing to establish 
a connection with the manufacturers of New England, 
selected Springfield as the fittest place, and Brown as 
the fittest person to have charge of the enterprise. The 
business promised well at first, and became flourishing ; 
but from various causes, which need not be detailed here, 
weakened, and at last collapsed. Brown was ruined, and, 
after three years' residence in Springfield, in 1849 went t0 
the Adirondack region, in Northern New York, there to 
settle up his wool-business, renew his sheep-raising, and 
teach settlers in those wild regions how to clear, plant, 
and farm the land which Mr. Gerritt Smith had offered to 
give by thousands of acres to such colored people as 
would accept them and live on them. Not many availed 
themselves of the gift ; but those who did had the benefit 
of Brown's experience and care as long as he could give 
them. 

During all these vicissitudes he was cherishing in his 
heart a purpose which to him was as sacred as was ever 
entertained by man : this was nothing else than the 
liberation of the slaves of the South. To say that he 
never lost sight of this purpose is to say little. He chose 
his occupations, so far as he could, with a view to the 
facilities they afforded for carrying it into effect ; looked 
out at once to discover the bearing they had on it; and 
seized every occasion they offered for promoting it. The 
occupation of shepherd was attractive to him, as promis- 
ing the means of furthering his designs. As agent of the 
Ohio wool-growers in Massachusetts, he sounded for in- 
formation that might help him in his projects ; especially 
making the acquaintance of fugitives from slavery, who 
might be made useful. Parker says in a letter from 
Rome, written in 1859, " If I am rightly informed, he has 
cherished this scheme of liberating the slaves in Virginia 
for more than thirty years, and laid his plans when he 



THE KANSAS WAR. 451 

was a land-surveyor in that very neighborhood where his 
gallows (I suppose) has since grown." Sanborn declares 
that his object in retiring to the solitudes of North Elba 
was, that he might there, away from observation, muster 
and drill a company of men as the nucleus of his army 
of liberation. The sheep-raiser, the wool-factor, the farm- 
er, the surveyor, was ever the emancipator in disguise. 
What he engaged in was done with all his ability, as con- 
scientiously as if it had been his ultimate business ; but 
his ultimate business was to set free the captives. 

In 185 1, being in Springfield on incidental affairs con- - 
nected with his wool concerns, he assisted in organizing 
an armed resistance to the Fugitive-slave Bill, then re- 
cently passed; and drew up a paper containing articles 
of agreement, which were signed by forty-four men and 
women, white and colored, most of the latter being fugi- 
tive slaves or their friends. The paper has " words of 
advice " that ring like the address of a general to his 
army : — 

" Do not delay one moment after you are ready : you will 
lose all your resolution if you do. Let the first blow be the 
signal for all to engage ; and, when engaged, do not do your 
work by halves, but make clean work with your enemies ; and 
be sure you meddle not with any others. ... Be firm, deter- 
mined, and cool ; but let it be understood that you are not to be 
driven to desperation without making it an awful dear job to 
others as well as to you. . . . Hold on to your weapons, and 
never be persuaded to leave them, part with them, or have them 
far away from you. Stand by one another and by your friends 
while a drop of blood remains, and be hanged if you must ; but 
tell no tales out of school. Make no confession." 

Nine years later, he himself, driven to bay, observed 
these directions to the letter ; thus showing how pro- 
foundly he had meditated, and how sincerely he trusted 
to them. The articles of agreement exhibited an equal 



452 , THEODORE PARKER. 

ripeness of conviction. He held himself ready at any 
hour to inaugurate his grand enterprise, and listened 
hourly for the call to do it. During the Anthony Burns 
excitement of 1854, he was with difficulty restrained from 
going to Boston, and leading an attempt at rescue. No 
sooner was Kansas fairly opened to emigrants, than his 
four sons, who had all been schooled in their father's 
beliefs and imbued with his resolution, left their home in 
Ohio, and repaired thither to settle. He himself went 
some months later, having affairs to attend to in Massa- 
chusetts not unremotely connected with his ulterior ends. 
His hour seemed hastening on ; and he wanted to sound 
his allies once more before the struggle came. When 
he joined his sons in the autumn of 1855, it was less with 
the design of establishing himself in Kansas as a peace- 
ful colonist than of obtaining a basis for operations 
against the slave power. He went, not as a civilizer, but 
as an emancipator ; not as a farmer, but as a v soldier. 
None of the Kansas-Committee money went into his 
hands : he was assisted moderately by friends in New 
York, but for the rest provided his own commissariat, and 
conducted the campaign at his private charge. He went 
alone, having removed his family from Ohio to North 
Elba ; his four sons only being his comrades. 

He established his headquarters near the town of 
Ossawattomie ; whither, in the spring of 1856, his other 
three sons and his son-in-law joined him. The name of the 
stern old man first became famous from his defence of 
that town against an assault of the " border ruffians " in 
August of that year. The name of " Ossawattomie Brown " 
was known throughout the country. But the grand oppor- 
tunity did not come then. There was bloody work. One 
son was slain ; another wounded ; a third taken prisoner, 
and made temporarily insane from cruel treatment : all of 
which intensified his hatred of slavery and its abetters. 
But the peculiar combination of circumstances his plans 



THE KANSAS WAR. 453 

demanded, the situation in Kansas did not supply: so he 
came away in the autumn to make fresh surveys, and to 
acquire new resources. He came to Boston, and early in 
January, 1859, presented himself before the secretary of 
the State Kansas Committee in his office on School 
Street. There was little need to tell who he was, or to 
present the letter of introduction from Mr. George Walker 
of Springfield, who knew him. The fame of the man had 
gone before him. His appearance was his testimonial. 
The moral grandeur was self-evident. I borrow the 
account of Mr. Sanborn, the secretary to whom he pre- 
sented himself : — 

" His aspect and manner would have made him distinguished 
anywhere among men who knew how to recognize courage and 
greatness of mind. He was then in his fifty-seventh year, but 
active and vigorous when not suffering from an ague con- 
tracted in Kansas. His figure was tall, slender, and command- 
ing, his bearing military, and his garb a singular blending of 
the soldier and the deacon. His coat, waistcoat, and trousers 
were of a brown color, — such as he always selected when pos- 
sible, — and of a cut far from fashionable. His gray overcoat 
was of that shape which our soldiers, a few years after, made 
familiar to all eyes ; and he wore a patent-leather stock, which 
also suggested the soldier of former years. His fur cap was 
more in keeping with his military overcoat than with the Sun- 
day suit of a deacon, which he wore beneath it. His face was 
close shaven, displaying the force of his firm, wide mouth and 
his positive chin. The long white beard which he wore a year 
or two later, and which nearly all his portraits now show, added 
a picturesque finish to a face that was in all its features severe 
and masculine. His eyes were of a piercing blue-gray, not 
very large, .but looking out from under brows 

' Of dauntless courage and considerate pride.' 

His hair was dark brown, touched with gray, short and bris- 
tling, and shooting back from a forehead of middle height and 
breadth. His ears were large ; his frame angular ; his voice 



454 THEODORE PARKER. 

deep and metallic ; his walk positive and intrepid, though some- 
what slow. His manner was modest, and, in a large company, 
even diffident. He was by no means fluent of speech ; but his 
words were always to the point, and his observations original, 
direct, and shrewd. His mien was serious and patient rather 
than cheerful : it betokened the 'sad wise valor' which Herbert 
praises : but though it was earnest, and almost anxious, it was 
never depressed. In short, he was then to the eye of insight 
what he afterwards seemed to the world, — a brave and resolved 
man, conscious of a work laid upon him, and confident that he 
should accomplish it." * 

The object of John Brown's visit to Boston was to 
obtain control of some two hundred Sharp's rifles be- 
longing to the Massachusetts Committee, to enable him to 
defend Kansas from invasion, and also to carry the war, 
if advisable, into the enemy 's country. All that that meant 
he kept in reserve ; perhaps had not settled in his own 
mind : though it is far more than probable that his Vir- 
ginia plan was already conceived. He frankly said that 
whatever was intrusted to him must be intrusted to him 
unconditionally ; that he could not take orders from any 
committee, but must act on his own personal responsi- 
bility. 

Mr. Sanborn, deeply impressed by the aspect . and 
bearing of the man, spoke of him to Mr. Parker, and 
soon after took him to Mr. Parker's house in Exeter 
Place. There he met Mr. Garrison. From that moment, 
it would seem, the Puritan hero made the rationalist 
minister an adviser and friend; and from that moment 
Mr. Parker became one of those who helped him with 
counsel and with money. Brown spent portions of four 
months in Massachusetts ; addressed the State Legisla- 
ture, urging an appropriation of money to aid the emi- 
grants from the State in Kansas ; and spoke effectively to 
a large audience in the town-hall of Concord, Mr. Emer- 

* The Atlantic Monthly, April, 1872. 



THE KANSAS WAR. 455 

son and Mr. Thoreau being among his interested hearers. 
Wherever he went, he made the same impression. Wher- 
ever he told his story, he drew listeners to him, roused 
their enthusiasm, and gained their faith. Though silent 
in regard to his ulterior plans and secret purposes, he did 
not withhold, even from public assemblies, the avowal of 
his determination to attack wherever slavery was vulner- 
able, and to take property, or even life, if it were neces- 
sary, to set the slaves free. 

The Massachusetts Committee gave Capt. Brown undis- 
puted possession of the arms; subject,. however, to future 
dispositions of the committee in Boston ; and money was 
placed in his hands, — not enough, however, to equip and 
maintain his company of men : and he went back to his 
home in North Elba, saddened by his partial failure. 
Before leaving Massachusetts, he expressed his feelings to 
Mr. Parker in the following remarkable paper, which is 
pasted on a blank page in the journal : — 

OLD BROWN'S FAREWELL TO THE PLYMOUTH ROCKS, BUNKER- 
HILL MONUMENTS, CHARTER-OAKS, AND 
UNCLE TOM'S CABINS. 

He has left for Kansas ; was trying, since he came out of 
the Territory, to secure an outfit, or, in other words, the means of 
arming and thoroughly equipping his regular minute-men, who 
are mixed up with the people of Kansas ; and he leaves the 
States with a feeling of deepest sadness, that after having ex- 
hausted his own small means, and, with his family and brave 
men, suffered hunger, cold, nakedness, and some of them sick- 
ness, wounds, imprisonment, cruel treatment, and others death ; 
that after lying on the ground for months in the most sickly, 
unwholesome, and uncomfortable places, with sick and wounded, 
destitute of any shelter, and hunted like wolves, sustained and 
cared for in part by Indians ; that after all this, in order to 
sustain a cause (which every citizen of this glorious republic is 
under equal moral obligation to do, and for the neglect of 
which he will be held accountable to God) in which every man, 



456 THEODORE PARKER. 

woman, and child of the entire human family has a deep and 
awful interest ; that when no wages are asked or expected, — he 
cannot secure (amidst all the wealth, luxury, and extravagance 
of this " Heaven-exalted " people) even the necessary supplies 
of the common soldier. 

John Brown. 
Boston, April, A.D. 1857. 

The discouragement was natural. For nearly twenty 
years Brown had cherished his scheme, and been watch- 
ing his opportunity to carry it into effect. He had de- 
voted himself and his family to it; he had cautiously 
taken steps to interest in it one or two from whom he 
might properly expect co-operation ; he had engaged as 
drill-master for his recruits an English Garibaldian whom 
he found giving fencing-lessons in New York : and now, 
when the condition of things in Kansas seemed to favor 
his enterprise, he was crippled for want of a few hundred 
dollars which would not have been missed by the donors, 
obliged to discharge his drill-master, and abandon, for the 
time, his project. He went away with shut lips, divulging 
to no one, not even to Mr. Parker, the secret design, the 
disappointment whereof gave poignancy to his grief. But 
the scheme was still cherished as intently as ever. In 
September, 1857, he wrote to Mr. Parker that he was in 
want of some five hundred or a thousand dollars " for se- 
cret service, and no questions asked." He had no news to 
send by letter, being suspicious of the United-States mails. 
He was, in fact, a man gravely suspected. Rewards were 
offered for him ; traitors were lurking ; his whereabouts 
had to be concealed. His letters were sent to feigned 
addresses. His friends, in corresponding with one another 
in regard to him, used circumlocutions, and cloaked their 
meaning under misleading phrases, speaking of their "wool 
speculation " and the "shepherd." He went to Iowa again 
and Kansas, busy with his plots. 

Whether they would have come out when they did, but 



THE KANSAS WAR. 457 

for an unforeseen accident, is uncertain. The discharged 
Garibaldian drill-master was angry, and made a noise ; 
wrote abusive letters to Mr. Sanborn, Dr. Howe, and 
Charles Sumner \ denounced Brown ; charged his friends 
with bad faith ; and threatened to expose the plot of which 
he alone was informed. He did not actually do this till 
nearly two years later, a few weeks before the attack was 
made; but he created uneasiness and suspicion in the 
minds of some of Brown's friends, which made explana- 
tions necessary. Letters written to him, however, did not 
reach him ; for he had again left Kansas, and was setting 
his face slowly once more towards the East, whence, in 
spite of his former disappointment, he still looked for 
aid. Early in 1858 the following letter was sent to Mr. 
Parker from Rochester, N. Y. : — 

Rochester, N.Y., Feb. 2, 1858. 

My dear Sir, — I am again out of Kansas, and am at this 
time concealing my whereabouts ; but for very different reasons, 
however, than those I had for doing so at Boston last spring. 
I have nearly perfected arrangements for carrying out an im- 
portant measure in which the world has a deep interest as well 
as Kansas, and only lack from five hundred to eight hundred 
dollars to enable me to do so, — the same object for which I 
asked secret-service money last fall. It is my only errand here : 
and I have written some of our mutual friends in regard to it ; 
but none of them understand my views so well as you do, and 
I cannot explain without their first committing themselves more 
than I know of their doing. I have heard that Parker Pills- 
bury and some others in your quarter hold out ideas similar 
to those on which I act ; but I have no personal acquaintance 
with them, and know nothing of their influence or means. 
Cannot you, either by direct or indirect action, do something to 
further me ? Do you not know of some parties whom you 
could induce to give their abolition theories a thoroughly prac- 
tical shape ? I hope this will prove to be the last time I shall 
be driven to harass a friend in such a way. Do you think any 
of my Garrisonian friends, either at Boston, Worcester, or in 
39 



45'8 THEODORE PARKER. 

any other place, can be induced to supply a little " straw," if I 
will absolutely make " bricks " ? 

I have written George L. Stearns, Esq., of Medford, and Mr. 
F. B. Sanborn of Concord : but I am not informed as to how 
deeply-dyed abolitionists those friends are ; and must beg of 
you to consider this communication strictly confidential, unless 
you know of parties who will feel and act, and hold their peace. 
I want to bring the thing about during the next sixty days. 
Please write N. Hawkins, care William J. Watkins, Esq., Roch- 
ester, N.Y. 

Very respectfully your friend, 

John Brown. 

Letters of similar purport, adapted to the supposed 
character of the men he was addressing, were written to 
T. W. Higginson, G. L. Stearns, and F. B. Sanborn. The 
noble and beautiful letter addressed on Feb. 24 to Mr. 
Sanborn from Peterborough, N.Y., and by him sent to Mr. 
Parker, among whose papers it was found, — the letter 
printed on the fifty-third page of " The Atlantic Monthly " 
for July, 1872, — reads like the message to a trusted but 
younger and less-experienced soldier than Parker. They 
all spoke of an important undertaking, — " by far the 
most important undertaking of my whole life " is the ex- 
pression he uses to Mr. Higginson, — but furnished no pre- 
cise clew to its character, and awakened no suspicion of 
it. On the 12th of February Brown wrote again, asking 
an interview at a friend's house in Central New York. He 
dared not pass through Massachusetts to come to Boston ; 
dared not be seen in places where he might be recognized, 
as he would be in Springfield. He was, for good reasons, 
in hiding. His friends in Kansas knew nothing of his 
whereabouts. He did not venture to visit his wife and 
children, so anxious was he to remain concealed. To go 
to Central New York in mid-winter on such a summons, 
for a purpose so undefined, was impossible for Mr. Stearns 
or Mr. Parker. Mr. Higginson also found it inconvenient 



THE KANSAS WAR. 459 

to go ; and Mr. Sanborn went alone, hoping and expect- 
ing to receive a full explanation of the charges brought 
by Hugh Forbes, " the Garibaldian drill-master," but 
scarcely anticipating any thing more nk^ ntous. There, 
on the evening of Washington's birthcL SIK - ? eb. 22), in a 
retired spot, beneath a perfectly loyal rooihis h few tried 
and trusty people the Virginia scheme WLde<7 n f ial ec i in 
all its parts, the locality illustrated, the provisions and 
contingencies explained, the movements detailed, the 
probable or possible eventualities confronted. The 
whole evening, and all the next day, the discussion went 
on between the conspirator on the one side, and his 
astonished and half-dismayed auditors on the other ; the 
old hero answering questions, meeting objections, quiet- 
ing doubts, disarming fears, showing himseli prepared 
at all points, and displaying a force of moral conviction 
and a grandeur of religious confidence that awed and 
stilled, if they did not convince. If it was impossible to 
share his enthusiasm, it was impossible to resist its in- 
fluence. 

Sanborn came back to Boston, and lost no time in re- 
porting to Messrs. Parker and Higgmson the f£/aiU of 
the interview. It was Parker who suggested that Brown, 
who had come as far as Brooklyn, should come secretly to 
Boston for an interview. He did so, and registered him- 
self as " J. Brown," on March 4, at the American House 
in Hanover Street, where he ,staid in strict privacy four 
days ; not even calling on Mr. Parker in Exeter Place on 
Sunday evening, as he had done before. One of the first 
to call on him, and promise aid, was Parker, who after- 
wards met there in consultation Messrs. Howe, Higgin- 
son, Sanborn, and Stearns ; the latter the largest supplier 
of material aid. The substance of those deliberations at 
the American House has never been divulged, and per- 
haps never will be. That Brown's representations made 
a deep impression on his friends is evident from the fact 



460 THEODORE PARKER. 

that they agreed among them to raise a thousand dollars 
for him : and that he was himself encouraged appears 
from a letter to Theodore Parker, written at his hotel, and 
conveyed by a .f 7 end to Exeter Place, — a letter printed in 
Weiss (ii. nl r ), begging him to prepare an address to 
the officei/, A soldiers of the United-States army, ap- 
pealing to^ riT -ir feelings of humanity and their sense of 
right ; and a " similar short address, appropriate to the 
peculiar, circumstances, intended for all persons, old and 
young, male and female, slaveholding and non-slavehold- 
ing, to be sent out broadcast over the entire nation." 
Mr. Parker never, so far as is known, put his hand to this 
work. But his intercourse with him was confidential : he 
lent him helpful books, and gave him the benefit of his 
vast information. It is believed that he was intrusted by 
Brown with incidents of his plan which were not revealed 
to others, and were contemplated rather than decided on 
by the leader himself. All seemed to be going well : the 
greater part of the promised money was collected, enlist- 
ments of men were getting forward, the meditated blow was 
about to be struck, when the "Garibaldian drill-master" 
int.pi*pC3cd again, — this time with more formidable dem- 
onstration. He had learned some things he did not know 
before ; among these, the complicity of members of the 
Boston Kansas Committee with Brown: and he insisted 
that the enterprise should be stopped; that confidence 
should be taken from Brown, and transferred to him ; 
otherwise what he knew should be given to the public. The 
committee were staggered. Of the five men composing it, 
three — Parker, Sanborn, and Stearns — were of the opin- 
ion that the blow must be deferred. Dr. Howe was doubt- 
ful. Higginson alone sided squarely with Brown, who was 
not afraid of any thing Forbes could do ; disbelieved in the 
extent and accuracy of his information ; and was inclined, 
on the whole, to think that the vague excitement caused 
by his disclosure would favor, rather than otherwise, his 



THE KANSAS r VAR, 

undertaking. Parker was ready for extreme m o i 

accepted Brown's ideas, sympathized with him in his' 

moral feelings, was expectant of uprisings on tl 

the slaves, would have been glad to see litem, ha< 

scruples in aiding them, but doubted the sue 

first attempt to incite them to revolt. In his 

there must be several such before one succeeded , 

was not enough of a military man to share the old hero's 

conviction that Hugh Forbes would do more to make 

enterprise prosper than to make it fail. 

Brown supposed that all he needed was a few hundred 
dollars. Of the equipment of arms he felt sure ; for were 
not the rifles of the committee in his possession ? They 
were, but still under the committee's ultimate control, to 
be used only for purposes which they approved of. And 
when Forbes gave information, in a general way, to Sena- 
tors Hale, Seward, and Wilson, of Brown's plans, and the 
complicity of members of the committee with them, and 
Wilson wrote to Dr. Howe, strongly protesting against the 
scheme, deprecating any association of the committee 
with it, and urging the consideration that they would lay 
themselves open to the charge of bad faith if they per- 
sisted, affairs came to a pause. The rifles did not then 
actually belong to the committee, though it was supposed 
they did ; and, as Brown's use of them for his private raid 
would, in the public estimation, have compromised them, it 
was decided that operations must be suspended. Notice 
was sent to Brown that the rifles must be used only in the 
defence of Kansas ; and postponement became inevitable. 
This obstacle of the arms was soon after removed by 
George L. Stearns, their actual owner, who formally put 
Brown in possession of them as his private agent ; thus re- 
leasing the committee from all responsibility for their use. 
Brown was now anxious as before to push his measures to a 
conclusion : but his friends hung back, thinking postpone- 
ment wiser; and 1859 was mentioned as the better time. 
39* 



ODORE PARKER. 

in was not abandoned, nor was sympathy with- 
lore money was promised; the arms were fairly 
r in a way to relieve the committee of all embar- 
ld John Brown was left with the sole respon- 
the enterprise, deferring to nobody, consulting 
obliged to report to nobody, at liberty to keep his 
ls secret even from those who thus far had been 
n his confidence. In the mean time, it was judged 
t that he himself should appear to have abandoned 
,s scheme, and should throw Forbes off the scent by 
returning to Kansas. Thither he went forthwith, and 
performed great feats there in the way of border warfare ; 
closing- the whole by an incursion into Missouri, and bring- 
ing away a party' of slaves, whom he carried through 
Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, to Detroit in Michi- 
gan, whence he easily despatched them into Canada. It 
was a great exploit, that made the country ring. This 
was early in 1859. In May his tall form was seen in the 
streets of Boston, calmly walking about, unconscious of. 
the stir of the city, like a man absorbed in a high pur- 
pose, with long white beard and slow tread, observed by 
all who had leisure to observe, known of all who cared to 
know him, unmolested by the authorities, fearless, and 
apparently careless, but mindful of the price that had 
been set on his head, and armed against assault. He 
was there to see his friends, collect resources, and make 
final preparations for the enterprise on which his whole 
heart had been set for twenty years. Theodore Parker 
was then in the West Indies ; the house in Exeter Street 
was closed : but whether at Boston, at Santa Cruz, Mon- 
treux, Rome, the brave old man was never forgotten by 
his friend. "Tell me," he asks from Rome, "how our 
little speculation in wool goes on, and what dividend 
accrues therefrom." No one more eagerly looked 'for 
tidings of the bold adventure ; no one more sincerely 
regretted its failure ; no one more faithfully bore witness 



THE KANSAS WAR. 463 

to the magnanimity of the martyred man, more frankly 
confessed his friendship for him, or his approval of his 
deed. Had he been at home, Music Hall would have 
been filled with another crowd such as listened to the 
sermon on " The New Crime against Humanity," and they 
would have listened to another thrilling chapter on the 
same theme. How he wished he were there ! How he 
fretted under the conditions that forbade his speaking his 
word, and standing by his deed, and sharing the fortunes 
of his friends ! The Americans about him gladdened his 
heart by expressions of approval of the gallant attempt ; 
but they only intensified his desire to unfold its deep 
lessons to his countrymen at home, confused and stag- 
gered, and needing more than ever to be reminded of 
eternal principles. 

" No American has died in this century whose chance of 
earthly immortality is worth half so much as John Brown's. 
The ex-governors of Massachusetts are half forgotten before 
they are wholly dead ; rhetoricians and sophists are remem- 
bered while they are talking : but a man who crowns a noble 
life with such a glorious act as John Brown's at Harper's Ferry 
is not forgotten in haste. The red martyr must be a precious 
man. 

" The effect is not over, nor ever will be. Brown's little 
spark was not put out till it had kindled a fire which will burn 
down much more than far-sighted men look for.. The Northern 
sky is full of lightning long treasured up : Brown was one 
bright, clear flash into the Southern ground. The thunder 
rattles all over the Union now : there will be other strokes by 
and by." 

The year 1857 was marked by a tremendous financial 
convulsion, that covered the surface of the commercial 
world with costly ruins. Mr. Parker was not an unmoved 
spectator of the calamity ; but he was a clear-headed and 
sound-hearted one. The distress afflicted him : but he 
was more interested in the causes of it than in the effects \ 



464 THEODORE PARKER. 

and the causes he found in the general decay of personal 
honor incident to the want of great religious ideas. So- 
ciety, to his view, was a unit, an organized whole, rejoi- 
cing and suffering equally, because sympathetically, in all 
its parts, The community which rejected the idea of a 
higher law in politics could not be expected to acknowl- 
edge it in trade ; nor could the men who apologized for 
slavery in order to secure the profits of the Southern mar- 
ket be counted on to observe the highest rules of con- 
science in their commercial struggle for the wealth they 
prized so highly. The "panic," like the strife in Kansas 
and the suppressed war in Washington, was the result of 
false ideas of God and man. The coming of it was inevi- 
table, and might have been predicted : the lesson of it 
was wholesome ; the effect of it would be good ; but the 
spectacle of it was awful. On the 19th of October, 1857, 
he writes to Miss Hunt, — 

"... Now a word about Boston and its affairs. There was 
never so much mental suffering in any two months as in the 
last five weeks. Think of men who never thought of want, ex- 
cept as the proud angels think of suffering, — as something fit 
only for the 'lower classes,' — now left without a dollar! The 
man who refused thirty thousand dollars for his house in Tem- 
ple Place, when he wanted to sell before he went to Europe, 
saw it knocked down at auction for nineteen thousand dollars. 
Michigan State bonds, seven per cent, have gone down from 
a dollar twenty-five to sixty-six cents. Our banks have been 
forced to suspend specie payments. All property is depreciat- 
ed. My income will not be half this year what it was last. 
But ' I still live ; ' only I shall buy no books ; and it makes a 
great gap in my charities. Some banks will lose much on 
failed paper. After a kite has been broken to pieces, the 
shreds are not worth much. I believe scarcely any house has 
failed in Boston which ought not to have failed before. One 
firm had a nominal capital of two million dollars ; but four hun- 
dred thousand dollars was never paid in, and they owed that to 
the banks, and never paid, but kept renewing their notes. An- 



THE KANSAS WAR. 465 

other had only five hundred thousand dollars, but business to 
the amount of three million or four million dollars, it is said. 
It is not fair to fly other men's paper on so frail a kite. 

" Business stops : that is the great calamity. It is hard to see 
great estates thus changing hands ; but, though it impoverishes 
John to enrich Timothy, it leaves the nation just as rich as be- 
fore. But the nation itself grows poor when its labor stops. 
The property of Massachusetts is, say, at the inflated prices of 
last July, one billion dollars, — a tenth part of the worth of all 
the real and personal property of the Union : her annual earnings 
are, at least, a third as much, — three hundred and thirty-three 
million dollars. To stop the mills and shops, you see how soon 
we should be poor. Trade languishes. Waterman, the dealer 
in kitchen-furniture, commonly sells a hundred dollars' worth 
in a day, in this month ; but, in the six days of last week, he 
took only fifty-nine dollars. A friend of mine, a jeweller, clears 
commonly from four thousand \o five thousand dollars a year ; 
but last week there were three days in which he did not take a 
dollar. In Lawrence there were three thousand five hundred, 
in little Taunton one thousand five hundred, in Natick, in one 
week, two hundred men without work. A few years ago, none 
would have thought it possible that a grand-daughter of old 

and a grandson of old would have been prevented 

from marriage by poverty ; but now, after the s and the 

s have both fallen in, the River Pactolus has not water 

enough to float the little shallop with two lovers in it, — chil- 
dren of the streams, — 'he this side, and she that.' So the little 
skiff goes down the Pactolus empty and whelmed over, while 
the lovers crawl to land wet and cold, — ' he this side, and she 
that side.' Hundreds of marriages will thus cruelly be pre- 
vented. Paper-money has a good deal to answer for ; for it is 
that which causes most of the mischief. There is a hundred 
million dollars' worth of French goods now in New York which 
will be taken back to Paris. No market for your flowers now, 
Mr. Crapaud. The artificial flowers in the man-milliner's win- 
dows, corner of Summer and Chauncy Streets, look wilted : 
there is no gum or starch will keep their spirits up in these 
times. 

" But no more of this. The country is full of bread and cloth. 
We have two hundred and fifteen millions of bank-bills, fifty- 



466 THEODORE PARKER. 

three millions of specie in the banks, and perhaps a hundred 
and sixty millions more of specie in private hands. By and by 
all the prostrate ' firms ' will be up ; money will be easy ; busi- 
ness will begin again ; Pactolus will rise ; the lover will swim out 
and right the little skiff, and take the maiden in ; and then the 
two will row the shallop together for many a happy day, — so 
they will. God bless them ! 

"... ' Defalcations ' continue, of course; for the doctrine 
of no ' higher law ' must produce its effects. You can never 
escape the consequences of a first principle. I think you have 
heard me say that before. What a terrible logic there is in hu- 
man affairs ! No reasoner is so 'consequential as mankind. I 
think we shall learn much from this crisis ; and to the commu- 
nity it will be worth all it costs the individuals. But it is pain- 
ful to see the soldiers who get wounded in this battle of in- 
dustry. Often these are the best men in the community. There 

is , the founder of Warren-street Chapel, 'has done 

more,' a merchant told me, ' for the rising generation, than any 
ten churches in Boston ; ' and at the age of sixty he is left 
without a cent." 

In another letter to the same correspondent, dated Bos- 
ton, Nov. 1 6, 1857, he moralizes on the event in his usual 
comprehensive and exhaustive manner : — 

"... Great pains will be taken to do all that charity can do. 
Impostors are already abroad to feed their lazy bones on the 
charity of self-denying, honest people. I hate lazy people, and 
should (perhaps) see an idle Irishwoman starve and die with 
no compunction at all. But to those. who would earn, and spare 
also, I open my heart. We have the old charitable societies act- 
ing with new vigor, and also a committee of gentlemen who are 
to devise' new experiments. Yankees are ingenious. What we 
want is work. This time of trouble will make some men con- 
sider of the chaotic condition of our social system, this antago- 
nistic competition in place of co-operative industry j and by and 
by a better state of things will come. Man is not yet far 
enough advanced to work in an harmonious organization : only 
self-love can now command the labor of this savage animal. 
But he grows wiser and better. Now not a word more of this 



THE KANSAS WAR. 467 

What an odds you must find between the Italians and the 
Germans ! This difference of race appears in all the action of 
a people, — in its literature, art, architecture, music, painting, 
sculpture, science, and especially in its government. 

" There are inferior races which have always borne the same 
ignoble relation to the rest of men, and always will. For 
two generations, what a change there will be in the condition and 
character of the Irish in New England ! But, in twenty genera- 
tions, the negroes will stand just where they are now ; that is, if 
they have not disappeared. In Massachusetts there are no 
laws now to keep the black man from any pursuit, any office, 
that he will : but there has never been a rich negro in New 
England ; not a man with ten thousand dollars, perhaps none 
with five thousand dollars ; none eminent in any thing except 
the calling of a waiter. Now imagine two thousand average 
Yankees set down in Constantinople or Canton with entire free- 
dom for all manner of activities, — all the prizes of commerce, 
literature, art, science, politics, before them. How long do you 
think Jonathan would be a bootblack or a waiter ? How long 
before the Turkish or Chinese money would be in Jonathan's 
pocket, and all the prizes of civilization in his hands ? Not two 
generations would pass over before this terrible Yankee superi- 
ority would appear in the facts of history. That is the strong- 
est case which can be found of national difference. But Ger- 
many and Italy present a striking example of it. The blue- 
eyed Germans have been masters in Italy for nearly eleven 
hundred years. I mean Rome has been subject, more or less, 
to Germany, ever since the Gothic conquest and Odoacer's 
sack of Rome in A.D. 476. The two people have been side 
by side, running the race of power. What an odds between 
them ! In those Italian countries where the Germans mixed 
their blood with the old populations, there came up adventurous 
mariners, who opened the way to the new worlds of the East 
and the West ; and Gothic architecture got planted there. But 
at Venice, Florence, Milan, the religious tree of the Germans 
could never reach the vast height and wonderful proportions it 
shot up to, spontaneous, in its native North, where the breath 
of the people gave life to its great stem, and individuality to 
every leaf. The rich buildings of these cities are a compromise 
of the German and the Italian mind. 



468 . THEODORE PARKER. 

"At the time of the revival of letters, say 1400 to 1500, 
see what a different turn the two nations took ! The classic 
authors of Greece and Rome came back to both. The Ital- 
ians took to art, painting, sculpture, and rested in objective 
beauty. It satisfied them, or most of them. Michael Angelo 
was never content with that : all he ever did (except his David) 
indicates a yearning after something higher and better than ob- 
jective art. But quite soon that uplifting of the soul which 
appears in old Italian art ; that struggle with the flesh, and 
yearning after God, so apparent in the pre-Raphael artists, and 
which they had caught from their contact with the austere 
spirit of mediaeval Christianity hovering over the land, — all 
this disappears. Italy settles down into content with objective, 
actual beauty. No more deep thinkers ; no more grand poets ; 
not a great preacher in the Italian Church. The spread of 
knowledge woke nothing deeper : it provoked no revival of 
religion ; nay, it woke no love of liberty, which once created 
great men. All her great minds — they were born fast enough 
— turned off to material science, and then did not dare claim 
the great freedom they knew was their birthright. Galileo, on 
his knees confessing a lie to men who also knew it was a lie 
he confessed, is a representative picture of Italy. 

" Now look at the Germans. Charlemagne, a great German, 
a Frank, sought to found schools. Rabanus Maurus begins to 
organize popular education among his countrymen in 804. 
The spark they kindled became a fire which always smouldered 
in the German forest, and sometimes broke out into a light 
blaze. By and by a German has invented printing ; and, be- 
fore long, there are presses in all the great German towns ; 
yes, Germans printing in all the great Italia?t towns, and some 
of the little ones, like Aquila and Soncino. When the revival 
of letters takes place in Germany, there is a revival of religion 
along with it. Men turn inward their eye, and ask not mere 
beauty, but also truth and piety. 

"Since then — say since 151 7 — what a difference in Italy 
and Germany ! One believes in salvation by the masquerading 
of the Church, by the ritual which the priests say over in Latin ; 
the other in salvation through faith in Christ, — an internal 
matter, personal to each believer. There is vicarious suffering, 
but no vicarious faith. 



THE KANSAS WAR. 469 

"Luther was a good type of Germany, — immensely strong 
in power of instinct, reflection, will, but rough and uncultivated ; 
Leo. X. a good type of Italy, — of noble birth, supple, astute, 
deceitful, given to lies, licentious, atheistic, effeminate in all 
things, an amateur even in his lust, not capable of strong, 
manly love. 

" Since then, look at the men who have come of the Teutonic 
stock ! — Bacon, Leibnitz, Newton, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, 
Shakspeare, Milton ; not to name their equals, but in other de- 
partments of thought. What has Italy to show ? Look at the 
mass of the Teutonic people in Germany, Scandinavia, Anglo- 
Saxondom, and compare them with the fifteen million Italians. 
Compare the light wit of the two nations, — the Pasqui?iades of 
Italy with the Reineke Fuches and the Narren Schiffs of old time, 
or the Punch and Kladderadatsch of our own day ; and in these 
little grimaces of the people you see the frivolity of the Italian 
slave, and the grim earnestness of the Teutonic freeman. 

"Look at the Italians and Germans in America, and see what 
a difference ! The Italian is a trader, a musician ; while the 
German is a professor in the college. How deeply rooted these 
things are ! Ineffaceable is the difference. 

" I like not much the modern German art : it is rich in techni- 
cal skill; poor in artistic life. It is an imitation of an imitation. 
I refer to the Diisseldorf school as the typical example. But 
go back to the German art which came out of the less-cultivated 
men, like Albrecht Diirer, Cranach, and the like, and you see 
these men, all full of the yearning after noble things, with 
their pencil seek to translate the instinct of the people into ar- 
tistic expression. 

" Compare Beethoven's or Mozart's music with Rossini's or 
Verdi's, and you hear and feel what elsewhere you see and think. 

" The Germans just now are charged with atheism : so are 
the men of science in England and America ; that is, the men 
who think. Certainly they are full of doubt. But what a 
difference between the atheism of grim, resolute thought, and 
that of easy indifference ! — nay, between the atheism which is 
only the failure of a great, earnest endeavor, and the ' belief 
of a man who don't care enough to think whether the priest 
tells truth or no ! The credo of a fool is not worth the abnego 
or dubito of a man." 
40 



4>o THEODORE PARKER. 

When, two years later (in 1859), the Pemberton Mill at 
Lawrence, Mass., — a vast structure many stories high, — 
fell, causing great loss of life, he reflected thus on the 
catastrophe in a letter from Rome to his friend Mr. 

Manley : — 

" What a ghastly affair was that at Lawrence ! — nearly as 
many killed and wounded as the Americans lost at Bunker 
Hill. These battles of industry, also, have their victims. I 
see they had a day of religious observance at Lawrence on the 
occasion, and am glad of it. It is natural for us in our sorrow, 
as in our joy, to flee to the Infinite for consolation and hope. 
But, alas ! how few ministers there are who can see and tell the 
causes of this disaster in human ignorance and cupidity ; its 
function to tell us of the error we commit, and warn us against 
repeating it ; and its consequence, full of beneficence and man's 
triumph over the elements ! These hundreds of innocent people 
died, not one of them forgotten before God : they slept in 
heaven instead of a factory boarding-house ; and woke next 
morning, not to the sharp ring of the mill-bell, but to the glad- 
some call, ' Come, ye beloved ! enter ye into the joy of your 
Lord ! ' 

" But their death is not in vain on earth : they fell as the 
New-England soldiers fell in our defeats at Bunker Hill and 
White Plains, and many another fatal battle-field ; but all helps 
to the great victory which is to come. Harsh words are said 
against the mill-owners, builders, &c. They did the best they 
knew, risking their money and reputation on the factory. They 
certainly constructed ill. The walls of this house I live in are 
thicker in the fifth story than the Pemberton Mills in the first, 
and solid too. Americans are careless, and must suffer until 
they learn prudence. Conform to natural law, and it shall be 
well with thee : that is the language of all ' accidents.' " 

In this general connection we may read another letter 
to Miss Hunt, from Boston, bearing date June 3, 1858 : — 

" Dear Sarah, — I have just read your sweet little letter 
of May 13, full of profound and just remarks on English and 



THE KANSAS WAR. 471 

American people. I quite assent to all you say of the English. 
Their national pride is immense j so is their personal pride : 
but, unlike the French and the Americans, they have little na- 
tional vanity, little personal. Insolent they truly are as a nation 
and as individuals, incapable of appreciating other nationali- 
ties and individualities. 

"But, with all the faults of the Islanders, I like the creatures. 
We are of the same stock, and have the same great problems 
to work out in the civilization of mankind ; viz.: 1. To organize 
the powers of Nature for the service of man ; 2. To organize 
the social powers of humanity, so as to have national unity of 
action ; 3. To develop the individual man into a great variety of 
forms. These are the three great problems of civilization. 
England and America work thereat side by side, both uncon- 
scious that they are factors in this great product of humanity. 
I love the Germans. As a family of men, they do immense 
service to mankind. They are not diffusive, but deep, — wells 
dark, cool, mysterious (you can see stars from their bottom 
at noonday), never-failing ; while the English are a wide lake, 
full of green islands, varied in form, green with life, but not 
deep; and the Americans are a river, never still, noisy and tur- 
bulent, dirty, but bearing fertility in this very mud which 
troubles the stream ; now spreading into rich lakes bigger than 
the island which holds that British pond ; now laughing in 
waterfalls, which one day will turn the mills of all the world ; 
then flattening out into dull lagunes, where only the alligator 
and the snapping-turtle can live, and watering marshes which 
reek with slavery ; then, anon, gathering its waters into one 
deep, wide channel, where, laden with the fleets of commerce 
going out and coming in, it flows tranquil on to the ocean, 
whence all wells, lakes, and rivers are at first supplied, and 
whither they all at last return. 

" I don't like to judge Russia by the counts I meet at water- 
ing-places, with their seal-rings of Siberian gold on their fore- 
fingers, drinking the finest brandy, and passing their nights 
in unmentionable riot, after buying flowers for some modest 
English or French or German or Italian maiden they have 
talked with by day in her own language, not well, but plain. 
I would not measure Judaea by the Hebrew peddlers on the Rue 
de Pots de Fee at Paris, or on the Exchange at London, Leipsic, 



472 THEODORE PARKER. 

or Amsterdam ; and they are peddlers in all these places, whether 
they cry, ' Marchand de drap /' or loan money by the million 
to Austria and France. I would not judge France, England, 
Germany, America, by the creatures you meet at hotels, thea- 
tres, and watering-places, &c. But I look and see what Russia 
has done in two centuries : what Judaea was in her glory, when 
Rachel bore patriarchs and prophets, — a Moses, a David, an 
Isaiah, a Jesus, and a Paul ; nay, what she has done when all 
other nations have hated her. I see what Germany has done 
and is doing : I look at gunpowder, the printing-press, the 
deepest service, the richest literature, the most symbolic and 
suggestive art, in the world ; a religion which produces a Lu- 
ther, a Bohme, a Schleiermacher, which comes out in Leibnitz, 
Kant, Hegel, Humboldt. I see what England has done for 
human liberty and human law in a thousand years : I see the 
immense spread of her stock in America, — we are bone of her 
bone, flesh of her flesh, soul also of her soul, — in Asia, Africa, 
and all the islands of the deep. I look at France, and see what 
she once did for civilization from 700 to 1600, and her influence 
since in making the deep truths of science intelligible to all 
thoughtful men, and her skill in all that pertains to the terrible 
art of war and the graceful arts of pleasure : for France is a 
CAT, the genteelest of all animals, with her pas de velours; and 
the most ferocious, with her deceitful griffe, and her wonderful 
power of centralizing thought, law, and all authority. And for 
these things I judge all nations. Poor Italy ! poor Spain ! 
theirs is the fate of Asia Minor, of Egypt, — the dead nation : 
no resurrection can lift it up. 

" If England or France should possess Italy, there would be 
a renewing life ; but it would not be Italian, only in Italy. As 
when a young man, poor and vigorous, but with no honest 
scruple, or with nature too much for conscience and will, mar- 
ries an old rich woman, bed-ridden, but with wealthy crutches 
to hold her up for the benediction of the priest (not to the fire 
of the lover), she sees new life around, and hears the laugh, 
ere long, of children not her own; so will it one day be with 
Italy, so with Spain. It is a curious law of nature, — the strong 
displaces the weak. 

" In New England there are two natural grasses for the open 
field, — the red-top and the white clover, both equally strong and 



THE KANSAS WAR. 473 

vivacious. The farmer sows two other grasses together, — red 
clover and herds-grass, — the first a weak grass, the last a strong 
one. The first year the field is red with clover, the herds-grass 
does not appear ; next year there are but bunches of red clover 
here and there ; the third year the strong herds-grass has killed 
it all. But little by little the native grasses, stouter than what 
he scattered there, come up, and in a few years have killed out 
all the other from the soil. Thus the white man kills out the 
red man and the black man. When slavery is abolished, the 
African population will decline in the United States, and die out 
of the South as out of Northampton and Lexington. It is 
just so with youth and age in the market. Let a man of seventy 
and a boy of twenty go into business in the same city, with the 
same little capital : in five years the young man will run him 
out of the market, and get away all his customers. So is it with 
the nations." 

The problem of American destiny was forever on his 
mind : — 

" I don't know but these Paddies are worse than the Africans 
to the country. We made a great mistake in attracting them 
here, and allowing them to vote under less than twenty-one 
years of quarantine. Certainly it would take all that time to 
clean a Paddy, — on the outside, I mean : to clean him inwardly 
would be like picking up all the sands of Sahara. There would 
be nothing left when the sands were gone. 

" It is amazing, the corruption of America ! Power is always 
abused in Church or State. One of the most sensible men I 
know said to me the other day, ' It makes me think we have 
made a mistake ; that we had better have a nobilitary class, who 
are above these bitter squabbles about office and money, and 
also a queen-bee in the hive, as still in England : ' but added, 
' if they would do any better? But our safety consists in going 
through this Red Sea of transition, not turning back to Egypt. 
We shall go through, not without manifold trouble. Guizot 
says, ' God has made the terms of national welfare more diffi- 
cult than any nation is willing to believe.' How true it is ! But 
these are yet the easiest conditions which are possible to infinite 
perfection. . . . Sumner never took so deep an interest in 
America, was never so regardless of personal consequences, as 
40* 



474 THEODORE PARKER. 

now." (This was written in December, 1857.) " The age never 
needed him more. I seldom covet any man's position : I am 
quite satisfied with my own. But I should like to be in the 
United-States Senate this winter. I should like to make four 
speeches, — on Kansas and its affairs, on the national conduct 
towards feeble States, on the Dred Scott decision, and on the 
general conduct of the Federal Government for the last dozen 
years. But I should rather Sumner would do it than I ; rather 
any one would do it. I want it done ; and, lacking a better, 
would do my possible. Don't think I desire such a place, or 
would accept it were it offered. There is only one position in 
fancy which I should prefer to the present one ; that is, a great 
quiet house in the country a few miles off, where I could write 
the books which still burn in my brain. Perhaps I shall have 
it one day ; but who knows ? I think ' circumstances ' are wiser 
than I ; certainly stronger." 

As early as 1844, he wrote from Rome to a friend, Mr. 
J. H. Billings of West Roxbury, — 

" I think we live in a time when it is a man's duty to attend 
to political affairs. If good men neglect their country, the bad 
will have it all to themselves, and a sad time we shall have of it. 
We certainly have much to fear ; not so much from a tariff party 
or an anti-tariff party as from an ignorant people and corrupt 
leaders. The strength of the country is such, and the energy 
of the people so great, where such opportunities are left for 
individual freedom and enterprise, that neither John Tyler nor 
John Calhoun could do us any great harm in four years ; but, 
unless we become a wiser people and a more moral people, we 
may give over the dream of governing ourselves, and be ruled 
by bayonets and a despot. The little I can do to aid the 
country, therefore, will be rather in attempting to promote edu- 
cation — intellectual, moral, and religious education — every- 
where, and for all men, than in joining in the measures of either 
party." 

To Miss Hunt. 

March 23, 1858. 

. . . The Devil of slavery now manifests himself in great 
wrath because he knows that his power is short. Banks says 



THE KANSAS WAR. 475 

there is not a politician he knows in the South who thinks 

slavery will last forty years in any slave State. But how the 

government fights for it ! how the hunkers at the North ! No 

foolish mother ever more seriously turned off her only son, and 

cuddled her monkey close to her breast. If we behave well, by 

the 4th of July, 1876, we shall extirpate slavery from South 

Carolina, its last stronghold. I don't believe we shall ever see 

another slavery President. 

July 12, 1858. 

. . . The slave power pushes things on rapidly. In Virginia 
the court decides that a slave has no legal rights to choice. A 
woman left money to her slaves on condition that they would be 
emancipated by their consent. The court decided against the 
will : so the slaves get neither freedom nor money. Louisiana 
has just passed a law forbidding free blacks to come in, and 
banishing all who are there now against the law. If they are 
found after July, 1859, th ev are t0 De so ^ as slaves forever. 
Soon they will attempt to re-enslave all the free blacks. Great 
efforts are making to restore the African slave-trade. Hundreds 
of American vessels are in it now : the government does noth- 
ing against them ; will do nothing. The end draws near. 
But some contingency may alter things. In 1856 we were quite 
close to a civil war. Had the governor of Kansas done as he 
was bid, and not resigned, and taken the free-State side, the war 
would have begun then. I think we shall never see another 
slave President. Still I may easily be mistaken. I should like, 
of all things, to see an insurrection of the slaves. It must be 
tried many times before it succeeds, as at last it must. 

He was thinking, when he penned that sentence, of John 
Brown and his enterprise, of which he thinks a good deal, 
but dares say nothing, even to these most intimate of his 
friends in Europe. In all his letters the name is not once 
mentioned ; nor would any suspect that his thoughts were 
so full of the man from whom he hoped so much. Parker 
knew how to keep a secret. 

From the Journal. 
" We understand a little of the evils of war ; only a little : 
the evils of wicked legislation in times of peace we know less 



476 THEODORE PARKER. 

of. The English corn-laws in thirty years retarded the prog- 
ress of mankind in that country more than all the wars of 
Napoleon. In America the legal continuance of the slave- 
trade for twenty years, from 1787 to 1808, cost more lives than 
all our wars for a hundred years. The wicked compromise 
made by the Constitution in 1787 has more retarded the nation 
than all other causes put together. It has cost more lives than 
all the wars of Napoleon ; yet what good did men purchase by 
it ? " 



For the sad sense of human woe is deep 

Within my heart, and deepens daily there. 

I see the want, the woe, the wretchedness, 

Of smarting men, who wear, close pent in towns, 

The galling load of life. The rich, the poor, 

The drunkard, criminal, and they that make 

Him so, and fatten on his tears and blood, — 

I bear their sorrows, and I weep their sins : 

Would I could end them ! No : I see before 

My race an age or so ; and I am sent 

For the stern work, to hew a path among 

The thorns, — I take them in my flesh, — to tread 

With naked feet the road, and smooth it o'er 

With blood. Well, I shall lay my bones 

In some sharp crevice of the broken way. 

Men shall in better times stand where I fell, 

And journey, singing on in perfect bands, 

Where I have trod alone, no arm but God's, 

No voice but his. Enough ! — his voice, his arm." 



CHAPTER XVII. 



FAILING HEALTH. 



The accumulation of work on Theodore Parker had by 
this time become immense ; for the new tasks never dis- 
placed old ones. All he had done he continued doing, 
quickening his speed as the road lengthened, and bracing 
his shoulders as the burden increased. The studies were 
continued, and under less merciful conditions. The 
books went in a satchel with him to the trains. All day- 
he read in the jostling car, the motion and noise whereof 
caused an unnatural irritability of brain ; and at night, 
by the help of a little apparatus he had, the scholar's 
toil was continued. The sermons were written as con- 
scientiously, and under severer sense of responsibility. 
His lectures, which were meant to edify and instruct, 
never to amuse, cost him a world of labor in preparation, 
and great fatigue in delivery. The parish-work — visit- 
ing the sick, comforting the afflicted, burying the dead — 
was done faithfully, with broken heart of spikenard, very 
precious, poured out on the feet of the humblest. To 
weep with the weeping, and rejoice with the rejoicing, was 
to him a ministerial privilege he never wished to forego, 
or delegate to others ; and his parish included, beside 
those who regularly attended service at Music Hall, a 
multitude of strangers who had no claim on him but that 
of their need, and who hastened to lay their loads, not at 
his feet, but on his shoulders. He considered himself 

477 



478 THEODORE PARKER. 

appointed " minister at large of all fugitive slaves in Bos- 
ton." How he discharged that ministry we have seen. 
In special cases his attention was unremitted. Hours 
were set apart every day for offices of help and sympathy. 
He multiplied himself with multiplying cares ; he spread 
himself with the spreading field. 

It is a common opinion that Mr. Parker sank exhausted 
from overwork. This is incidentally, but only inciden- 
tally, true. But for terrible overwork, he might have lived 
to be an old man. But for the exposure to which a part of 
his work (lecturing, for instance) subjected him, he probably 
would have reached seventy-five or eighty. Still his arch- 
enemy was not toil : he worked easily. Intellectual labor 
was a joy to him : it cost him more to suspend it than to 
pursue it. Toil was a necessity of his being, a law of his 
constitution. To stop his engines damaged them. Then 
— after he reached mature life at least — his habits were 
mainly wholesome. He was temperate, but no ascetic, in 
eating or drinking. He did not keep inordinately late 
hours. He was fond of walking ; and, in the season for it, 
took long walks, — made journeys on foot into the country 
and to the mountains. His animal spirits were high : 
he could laugh and jest to the last. The blood was swift 
in his veins. In his youth he had great strength : he was 
always powerful in his arms and legs. . In the postscript 
to a note to his friend T. W. Higginson, dated March, 
1858, he says, — 

" Let the saints (at Worcester) always keep good bodies. 
Do you know I could once carry a barrel of cider in my hands ? 
I don't mean a glass at a time, — I could do that now, — but a 
barrel at a time. I have worked (not often, though) at farm- 
work twenty hours out of the twenty-four, for several days 
together, when I was eighteen or twenty. I have often worked 
from twelve to seventeen hours a day in my study for a con- 
siderable period; and could do that now: so you were not 
wholly wrong in putting me among the able-bodied men." 



FAILING HEALTH. 479 

Still there was a radical source of weakness : there was 
inherited disease. His mother was consumptive. The 
climate of his birthplace was unhealthy. He grew up amid 
the disadvantages of poverty, — insufficient and unsuita- 
ble food and clothing, privation, and premature labor. 
His boyish strength was frightfully overtaxed. He knew 
and was told nothing of the necessity of sleep, exercise, 
recreation : so that he grew up thoughtless of the simplest 
conditions of physical health ; so ignorant of them, that 
he fancied he could live at Cambridge on two crackers a 
day, and actually tried to live on something like it. It is no 
wonder that his latent foes were re-enforced : that the cita- 
del held out so long is the marvel. Confessions of ill 
health appear early in the journal. The trouble was 
mainly in the head, though sometimes in the side. He 
calls it dyspepsia, " or something else." He complains of 
useless days and weeks when he could do nothing. 
Among the letters to Miss Stevenson I find this one, 
dated Feb. 23, 1846: — 

" I was sorry the moment that I mentioned my complaint to 
you the other day ; for I saw that it gave you more trouble than 
me. I don't often tell my friends that I am ill : then, I know 
not how, I felt it would be wrong not to tell you. I have done 
no work that I could avoid. I have been idle this winter, till my 
conscience rebuked me sternly, and does now. I am passing 
my best days, and doing but very little. My troubles are not 
the result of any i7)i7nediate overdoing, but of causes that go 
back to my childhood. I have often done two days' work in 
one ; for I was obliged to do it. It cost me a struggle, alone 
and single-handed, to gain an education. The foundation of 
my present troubles, I have no doubt, was laid more than fifteen 
years ago, — before I came to Boston as a teacher. Since that, 
my life has been one of care and anxiety, not diminished since 
my marriage. You know the cause. I don't know what to 
do. So long as I can stand upright, I do well : the moment I 
resolve to lean a little, I go plumb down ; for there is nothing 
for me to lean upon : therefore I never fall till the last minute. 



480 THEODORE PARKER. 

I will be as careful as I can be, considering the circumstances 
of the case. I can't go off a fortnight, though I gladly would. 
We are just putting the social meeting into action : and I feel 
that I had better be here ; though, perhaps, I had better not. 
Then, too, whom can I get to bend my own bow ? — not a long 
one, not a tOugh one, perhaps, but one that others don't like to 
handle. I don't know whether I am destined to a long -life or 
not. Of my seven father Parkers this side the ocean, all but 
one have lived to be nearly eighty. My candle stands in a cur- 
rent of air, and so, I suppose, will burn away faster than if all 
about it was still. I don't know that I need rest : I think I 
need fun, which I can't easily get. I should like to spend one 
evening in the week, for three months, with 'good fellows,' 
who sang, — 

' We won't go home till morning ! ' 

However, give yourself no more concern about me ; for this 
week I am a good deal better. Last week I did nothing at all, — 
not even write a sermon ; for an' old one took its place the 
stor?ny Sunday : and so the ill wind actually blew me a ser- 
mon. Ah, Hannah ! a great many ill winds have blown me 
good. 

" Now, you child, I might turn round and caution you, who 
need the advice more than I do, but won't follow it half so 
much, you good-for-nothing ! ' Physician, heal thyself ; ' take 
thine own doses. There is no preaching like practice. Cure up 
Margaret as fast as you can, and I'll take care of my head ; 
and it will last a good while yet, and bear some hard knocks. 
The spring will soon come ; and its freshness of leaves and 
blossoms will do as much good to all of us as to the bluebird and 
thrasher. Be a good girl, and don't trouble yourself about 

"Your Grandfather." 

In September, 1849, ne constructs a health-scale, thus : — 

" When able to write the sermon Monday morning, A. 

« " " " " " evening, f. 

" " " " " Tuesday morning, B. 

" " " " " " evening, f. 

And so on, — C, D, E, F. If not at all, o." 



FAILING HEALTH. 481 

From the Journal. 

Saturday, Sept. 8. — Have done little all the week. Health 
\ : this is too near an approach to for this season of the year. 
I have not begun this month so ill for some years. If I had 
one of the usual humdrum parishes, I would leave it for a year, 
and go off to Europe ; but this is a parish which I cannot leave. 
I feel as if I had squandered a fortune ; for, at the age .of thirty- 
nine, I am ill, and lose more than half my time. For the next 
six months I will take especial care of my health, making all 
else bend to that, and that to nothing. 

Satwday, Sept. 22. — Health about B. 

The journal of Aug. 24, 1853, contains a birthday rec- 
ord : — 

" I am this day forty-three years old. I used to think I should 
live as long as my fathers ; but certain admonitions of late warn 
me that I am not to be an old man. The last three years have 
made great alterations in my health and vigor. I walk and work 
now with a ivillj then by the spontaneous impulse which once 
required the will to check it. I neither grieve nor rejoice at the 
thought of departure ; but I will try to set my affairs in such a 
condition, that I can at any time go over to the other side when 
summoned, and leave affairs in no perplexity." 

Already he had begun to count his chances. He 
bethought himself of his ten brothers and sisters, all of 
whom, save, one, attained mature years ; all of whom, save 
one, died from forty-four to forty-seven. He kept his eye 
on that critical period, doubting whether he should pass 
it ; confident that, if he did, he should live to be an .old 
man. 

The journal of April, 1856, has another record : — 

" Last night I was to lecture at New Bedford, and tried to 

speak ; but was so ill, that I could not hear or see or speak well. 

•I left the room, and went out with Mr. Robeson, and walked a 

few minutes. Went to an apothecary's, and drank about a 

41 



482 THEODORE PARKER. 

spoonful and a half of sherry wine, which helped me. Spoke, 
but with great difficulty. Am better to-day, but slenderly and 
meanly. / take this as a warning, — not the first." 

To Miss Hunt, on the 30th of November of the same 
year, he writes,* — 

" I hope that Sarah does not stay a prisoner in her room. 
There are two admirable doctors ; to wit, Dr. Sun and Dr. 
Air. Both, I think, will do that little maiden a deal of good ; 
and she need not take their prescription homoeopathically. I 
preached two Sundays : — 

" 1. On needless sickness, &c. 

" 2. On the progress of the Anglo-Saxons in three hundred 
years (a sermon on the three-hundredth anniversary of Queen' 
Elizabeth's accession to the British throne). It is a great tri- 
umph we have made since that day. 

" Then the Catholics had the hall for a fair ; and we must 
shut up on Thanksgiving Day and last Sunday. It happened 
famously this time ; for I was not able to preach. I strained the 
muscles of my right thigh in getting into the railroad-cars on 
Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving; and' came home in a 
bad condition. I have not been down stairs since Thanksgiv- 
ing morning to breakfast, but stay here ; wear the Bear's petti- 
coats, &c. ; but am mending, and shall preach next Sunday on 
the progress which the foremost ideas of humanity will make 
in the next three hundred years. The last sermon was one of 
memory and gratitude : the next will be of duty and hope. 

" Many thanks for all your kind words, both of you, and your 
kind wishes. I am the most submissive of all mortals. I do 
just what the doctor (Cabot) and Bear and Hannah 'tell me. I 
am transfigured into a spaniel, a turnspit, a poodle, or some 
other puppy-dog, with no self-moving principle in him. So don't 
advise Bear to consult Rarey. She could teach him many a 
lesson in the art of man-taming. I never expect to name my- 
self again. 

" My health is good ; but I can't walk much, and have a cough, 
— not pulmonic, — which is going off. I can preach without 
any difficulty ; but I don't go about much. Have been in State 
Street but once for nine weeks, and made but one parish visit 



FAILING HEALTH. 483 

for nine, — then to see the sister of Mrs. Fisher : the old lady 
has moved up and on. So, of course, I have not seen Cabot, 
who has taken his wife out to Brookline ; nor Mr. Waterston. 
Just now I can't write much : so you get little, and others 
nought. 

" Willie writes a nice German Wunder-sXory ; but I had rather 
hear that he had knocked down a Dutch boy of twelve, and 
could throw any boy in his class. The lad wants bowels, legs, 
arms, and chest; not a head. I tremble at the thought of that 
school, — thirty-four boys in the class, and he fourth or fifth ! 
I wish he was tending cows somewhere, and not studying so 
much. ... 

" The cod-liver oil from the Laffoden Isles is rancid before it 
reaches us. The best we get is made at Provincetown — which 
lasts from March to September — and at Labrador, which is 
made in October, and keeps through the winter. None is good 
more than four or five months. I am taking the Labrador. 
All the house is well, and we all send love. 

" God bless you ! " T." 

This, then, is his condition in the thick of the Kansas 
strife, with all that pressure of anxiety on his mind. To 
Miss Hunt he writes again on the 17th of December,— 

" I am as busy as the apostle who had ' no leisure ; no, not 
so much as to eat.' I wonder if St. Peter had not some dear 
little family off in Siberia or Australia, with a hippopotamus in 
it, which he must write to by the next steamer from Joppa, or 
by the Turkish mail-line, or the Jerusalem and Kamtschatka 
express ? 

" I am lecturing all the time : twenty-five lectures since the 
1st of November, and perhaps fifty more under contract. All 
this keeps me up late, and makes me work hard, which you know 
I dislike. In January and February I shall go several times 
to New-York State, having some twenty or more applications. 
So, perhaps, I shall continue to do till I am fifty ; and after 
August, i860, I intend no longer to live such an apostolical, no- 
madic, and unchristian life, but to sit down and write my books, 
which cry out for me to make them ready. But who knows ? 



484 THEODORE PARKER. 

It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. Some acci- 
dent may stop the lecturing to-day, or something else make it 
necessary to continue the toil till I am a hundred. Poverty, 
like an armed man, may come upon me in my old age as on 
Pierpont, and stir me up to work when I would rather lie down 
and sleep. But, as the sky now promises no such storm (I 
should have said threatens), I lay plans of a different sort. 
'There's nothing sure but death and rates,' say the Scotch: 
so who knows that i860 will bring the long-coveted opportunity 
to write my books ? " 

It would seem as if he were determined it should not : 
for, early in this very year (1856), he undertook to preach 
on Sunday afternoons to an independent society in Water- 
town that had no minister ; and he did it for a year, with 
no other compensation than the thanks of the people and 
the amount of his bill at the stable. The service he en- 
joyed, and he wrote no new sermon ; but the journey in 
all weathers he had no right to submit to, and the duty was 
a tax on his conscientiousness. " Work while it is day " 
was the rule he went by, forgetting that too much work 
brought on the night before its time. To friends who 
remonstrated with him he would reply, " Look at the con- 
dition of the country to-day ! — the slaveholders clamor- 
ing for more and more power ; the government disposed to 
yield all they ask ; the South united and arrogant ; while 
the North is divided, and disposed to be submissive. I 
cannot stand idly by, a silent witness of this deadly 
demoralization. I must exert every power I possess to 
avert the awful evils that slavery threatens, to the slaves 
first, but also to the whole people ; and, if my life must 
be sacrificed, it cannot be sacrificed in a better cause than 
that of opposition to this dreadful sin." 

To a faithful soul who came to see him not long before 
he broke down he said with emotion, — 

" I am glad you have come ; for I know you won't scold at me. 
People come here and scold at me for doing what I can't help 



FAILING HEALTH. 485 

doing. I feel that the fate is upon me. God has intrusted me 
with certain powers, and I must use them in the service of my 
fellow-men. Here are four millions of my brothers and sisters 
who are literally dumb. They are not allowed to speak ; and 
they hold up their hands to me in earnest entreaty, saying, 
' Speak for us ! ' and I must do for them all I can. I have 
looked the matter carefully over, and think I can go through the 
winter safely, and do my work. I come of a long-lived stock, 
and hope with care to survive ; but it matters little whether I go 
through or go under, if I do my duty as I ought." 

" Never," said his friend, "did I see any one so thorough- 
ly aware of the fact that he was laying his life on God's 
altar." 

Still he did the best he could, or thought he could. The 
summer of 1856 was spent delightfully in the near neigh- 
borhood of very dear friends whom he was not to see for 
three years, but whom he met himself in Europe before 
they had expired. Many an evening of that summer he 
passed on the lawn with them, and was in his happiest 
•vein. Every star as it came out in the heavens, the stray 
odors, from the ground, the chirp of cricket and -grasshop- 
per, the cry of the startled bird in the chestnut-grove, all 
sights and sounds, were noted by his quick senses, and 
woven into his w r onderful talk. On the last evening, as he 
said " Good-by ! " he begged for the " Moorish cushion " 
he had sat on these moonlight or starlight evenings, and 
took it away as a memorial, and to sit on " sacramentally " 
after his friends had gone. A touch of his heartstrings 
always revived him. 

In the August of this same summer (1856) he writes to 
Miss Stevenson, — 

" For now a week I have had time — the first for a year or 
two — to read for general instruction and for immediate delight. 
Guess how I enjoyed it ! Kuno Fischer, Diotima (a ' Treatise 
on Beauty '), and half a dozen volumes of Vogt, with a ' Vie de 
Pierre Ramus ' by Waddington, and a (very stupid and hypo- 
41* 



486 THEODORE PARKER. 

critical) work on ' La Vie Future ' by M. Martin, with divers 
others, have been the results thus far. Here is unbounded 
stillness and repose ; nothing to molest." 

Light reading to rest the mind ! 

About this time he amused himself with making trans- 
lations from German poets ; his favorite being Heine, the 
most difficult of all to render. It was his habit, late on 
the Sunday afternoons of a single winter and spring, to 
go to a friend's house in Mt. Vernon Street to hear and 
read the translations. He took great pains with these 
trifles ; wrote them over and over again ; seemed never 
tired of improving them ; prided himself more on their 
artistic perfection than on much better work ; desired that 
the choicest of them should be preserved, with his name 
attached to them. Specimens of this light work Mr. 
Weiss has printed in his second volume. The very best 
of all I venture to reprint here : — 

Oh ! knew but the blossoms, the wee things, 

How deep I am wounded at heart, 
They'd mingle their tears with my weeping, 

And charm away my smart. 

And did but the nightingales know it 

That I'm sad and sick so long, 
They would joyfully come and sing me 

A life-awakening song. 

And if they could know all my sorrows, 

The dear gold-starlets we see, 
They would all come away from their glory, 

And comfort speak to me. 

But all of them can't understand it : 
One only she knows of my smart ; 
. For it was she herself rent asunder, 
Asunder rent, my heart. 



FAILING HEALTH, . 487 

This is pretty : — 

1. ' 

On the pinions of the Muses, 

My dearest, thee I bear 
To the banks of holy Ganges, 

Where I know the spot most fair. 

11. 
A rosy blooming garden 

Lies in still moonlight there : 
The lotus-flowers are waiting 

Their little sister dear. 

iii 

The violets are billing and cooing, 

And look to the stars above ; 
In secret the roses whisper . 

Their fragrant story of love. 

IV. 

There comes to leap and listen 

The shy and cunning gazelle ; 
And far on the holy river 

The waters rush and swell. 

v. 
There 'neath a palm we'll lay us, 

Beside the holy stream, 
And drink of love and quiet, 

And dream a blessed dream. 

The following version of " The Midnight Review " com- 
pares fairly with the usual renderings of that famous 
poem, and shows what he could do : — 

1. 

About the hour of midnight 

The drummer leaves his grave ; 
Makes with the drum his circuit ; 

Goes up and down so brave ; 



4S8 THEODORE PARKER. 

II. 

And with his arm all fleshless 

Goes drumming through and through 
He beateth many a roll-call, 



in. 

The drum resoundeth strangely ; 

It has a heavy sound : 
The old deceased soldiers 

Waken thereat in the ground. 

IV. 

They who in high Northland, 
All stiff in ice and snow ; 

Those in Italia sleeping, 
The ground too rich below ; 

v. 

They whom the Nile slime covers, 
. And the Arabian sand, — 
They rise from out their war-graves, 
And their weapons take in hand. 

VI. 

About the hour of midnight 
The trumpeter leaves his grave, 

And bloweth on his trumpet, 
And up and down rides brave. 

VII. 

Those serving on airy horses, 

The riders dead, behold ! 
The bloody ancient squadrons 

With weapons manifold. 



FAILING HEALTH. 489 



VIII. 

There the white skulls all grinning 
Beneath the helms appear ; 

And hands of bone and sinew 
Long troopers' swords uprear. 

IX. 

About the hour of midnight 
The commander leaves his grave ; 

From far he cometh hither : 
Round him his staff rides brave. 



He wears a little chapeauj 
A simple dress he wears ; 

Also a little straight sword 
At his left side he bears. 

XI. 

The moon, her light, pale yellow, 
Shines on the long, wide plain : 

The man in the small chapeau 
Looks on his troops again. 

XII. 

The ranks present saluting, 
And shoulder then no gun : 

With playful sound of trumpet 
The whole host marches on. 

XIII. 

The generals and marshals 
Around him form a ring : 

To the nearest the commander 
A word is whispering. 



490 THEODORE PARKER. 



XIV. 



That word goes round the circuit, 

Resounding near and far : 
And " France ! " is now the watchword ; 

The countersign, " St. Helena ! " 



xv. 



This is the mighty muster 

In the Elysian Plain, 
Which at the hour of midnight 

The emperor holds again. 



To Miss Hunt 

Boston, Sept. 4, 1857. 

My dear Sarah, — My summer vacation draws nigh its 
end. I shall begin to preach again Sept. 6. 

I have spent the last seven weeks in the most strenuous 
attempts to be intellectually idle. It is true, I have not all the 
common helps thereto. I don't drink to excess, or drive fast 
horses. More than morally, I am materially opposed to smok- 
ing, with a constitutional objection to the laziness-producing 
weed. .1 keep no bad company. I don't sit in easy-chairs or 
rocking-chairs. What helps could I have ? I have industri- 
ously read the Boston newspapers, — the "Courier," "Journal," 
"Traveller," "Transcript," &c. ; and three times have attended 
church on Sundays. The result is, I never lived so many weeks 
with so little thought. I have done what I could to effect a cure. 
If I fail, it must be a vice of my nature, no sin of my will. The 
doctors (and doctoresses) recommended total abstinence from 
thought. I have corneas near it as the "carnal reason" of my 
"fallen nature " will allow. 

Now I shall begin to think a little, and gradually come back 
to a little more, and so on. I shall lecture but little this winter ; 
never when I am forced to ride all night, or sleep in a bad bed. 
There is a deal of writing to be done ; and this winter I shall 
attend to that partly, and partly to acquiring firm and robust 
health. My nature never consented to this nomadic life of a 
lecturer, running all over the country, and sleeping in other 



FAILING HEALTH. 491 

men's beds (or in no beds, and often not sleeping). But it 
gave me the means of charity, and an opportunity to publish 
certain thoughts which I think of value to the people. Here- 
after I shall be content with the pulpit and the press, and let the 
lecture go ; at least, for a time. 

The visit to Central New York was fatal. It was 
made in February, 1857. Thus he tells the story: — 

" Feb. 9th, I was to lecture at Waterford ; 10th, at Syracuse ; 
nth, at Utica ; 12th, at Rochester ; and then return, and reach 
Boston at midnight of I4th-I5th. I should pass every night in 
my bed, except that of the 12th. But, on the contrary, things 
turned out quite otherwise. The railroad-conductor left us in 
the cars all night at East Albany, in the midst of the inundation. 
Common New-England prudence and energy would have taken 
us all over the river. I had no dinner, no supper, except what 
I had in my wallet (dried fruit and biscuit) ; no breakfast the next 
morning, save a bit of tough beef in an Irish boarding-house. 
When I awoke on the morning of the 10th, I felt a sharp pain 
in my right side, not known before. I got to Syracuse that 
night (10th) vid Troy ; lectured at Utica the nth ; and at eleven, 
p.m., took the cars for Rochester, and rode all night till five or 
six the next morning, when I got into damp sheets at Rochester, 
and slept an hour. I was ill all that day, and at night had all 
the chills of an incipient fever. But I lectured ; took the cars 
at two or three, a.m., having waited for them threeor four hours 
in the depot ; and reached Albany in time for the four, p.m., 
train, Friday ; and got to Boston about two, a.m., on Saturday ; 
having had no reasonable meal since noon, Thursday. Sunday 
I preached at Boston and Watertown, as my custom was. 
The next week I was ill, but lectured four times ; so the next 
and the next ; until, in March, I broke down utterly, and could 
do no more." 

To Miss Hunt. 

Boston, April 7, 1857. 

My dear Sarah, — I have written but one letter with my 
own hand for more than three weeks ; and now my pen will 
wabble a little, do the best I can. 

What a queer thing for me to be sick ! I don't know that I 



492 THEODORE PARKER. 

ought to call it sick, though. But I was ailing a month before I 
finally broke down. For a while I lay horizontally twenty-two 
hours out of the twenty-four, then twenty-one, then twenty, 
then nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, fifteen ; and yester- 
day I was out of the horizontal line eleven hours. I made up 
my mind that one of the best medicines would be the usual 
service of Sunday. The doctors all of them said " No ! " all 
the laical and clerical friends said " No ! " and, with even more 
emphasis, all the women. 

But I thought, out of ten chances, there are seven that it will 
do me good ; only three for harm. So I made ready an old 
sermon of integrity, adding a deal of new matter thereto. A 
coach took Bear and me to the door ; and with her help and a 
cane I crawled into the house, and walked as bravely as I could 
to the pulpit. I felt a little sinking of the heart as I looked at 
the congregation, — about two thousand. But all the preliminary 
services went off without difficulty. I apologized for being 
sick, and showed that it was not wholly my fault ; but the ner- 
vous poison I took in at East Albany had done the work. 

Then came the sermon. I spread out my feet as far apart as 
I could (old men and little children always straddle) to make a 
wide basis, and kept my hand always on the desk, so that I need 
not fall over. Only two or three times did I venture to lift both 
•hands at once. The services over, Mr. Manley and others put 
on my coat ; and Bear and Dr. Geist helped me out and into 
the coach, and I rode home. My pulse is commonly about six- 
ty-four : it stood at seventy-six . to eighty-four till about three 
o'clock ; then went down. I felt a little doubtful of the experi- 
ment for a while : but at five the tide had begun to turn ; and at 
six I said I would not crow till I was out of the woods ; and at 
nine it was clear that the experiment had prospered ; and Mon- 
day morning, spite of the southerly rain, which held all day, it 
was plain to all that I was saved by the "foolishness of preach- 
ing." To-day I am a deal better, and shall be as careful and 
prudent as the most cautious can desire. 

The parish-meeting was last Sunday, at twelve. They raised 
my salary from sixteen hundred to two thousand five hundred 
dollars ; and offered me six months' vacation to go to Europe, 
they supplying the pulpit. I shall not take two thousand five 
hundred, only two thousand dollars ; and shall decline the gener- 



FAILING HEALTH. 493 

ous offer of a vacation. The kindly offer effects a cure ; and so 
I need not take all the medicine. I make day-dreams and night- 
dreams of the visit, and so get a good deal of solid satisfaction 
out of it. But I don't need the relaxation, and so shall not take 
it. This recent illness is a warning which I shall carefully 
heed. I never came quite so near the edge of the precipice 
before. I might have had either a brain-fever or a lung-fever: 
I am let off with this trifle of a slow typhoidal. Men seldom 
have the typhoid twice. I had mine at twelve, and lay at Death's 
door a good while, but was not taken in. 

At this juncture, his strength failing him, he was sub- 
jected to a fresh assault on his theological position. 
Hitherto his ecclesiastical foes had mainly been members 
of the Unitarian sect. His theological war had been waged 
within the limits of a small denomination, which the great 
religious world of New England had come to overlook as 
a Boston clique, a local peculiarity too insignificant to be 
regarded with alarm. Beyond an occasional twitting of 
the Unitarians with their responsibility for Mr. Parker, 
there was little serious concern taken in the family quar- 
rel. But now the case was altered. Parker had a na- 
tional reputation. He lectured and preached throughout 
the Northern States. His printed sermons were sold by 
the thousand, and read by the ten thousand. Strangers 
from afar came to hear him, and carried his thoughts all 
over the land. His name was spoken in the places of 
power by men who had the political and social destinies of 
the country in their charge, — by statesmen, senators, gov- 
ernors of States. Reformers confessed him their leader ; 
philanthropists acknowledged him their fellow in good 
works. He was a formidable person in the community, an 
invidious influence on the globe, quite worthy the attention 
of those who had in their keeping the souls of men. Had ( 
not such been faithless to their duty in allowing him to run 
wild so long ? Was it not time that his course should be 
checked ? Had he not lived long enough, yea, too long, 
42 



494 THEODORE PARKER. 

for the welfare of the elect ? To assassinate him was, of 
course, out of the question. But if the Lord might only 
be moved to take him to himself, sanctified or not ! Might 
He not be moved by entreaty ? A " providential interven- 
tion " would be as effectual as " carnal " methods used to 
be, and would be edifying beside. Why should such inter- 
ventions be discontinued ? 

The great "revival "of 1858, resulting from the com- 
mercial ruin of 1857, gave the desired opportunity for an 
experiment. New England was in a convulsion of reli- 
gious emotion, torn between ecstasies of devotion and ago- 
nies of penitence. Pious whippers-in plied all their arts 
on .the weak, the nervous, the superstitious. Praying 
bands went from town to town, galvanizing the moribund 
into spasms of supplication. Churches were open all 
day, and relays of ministers kept the evangelical car in 
swift motion towards the kingdom. Posters in the streets 
announced the time and place of special meetings for in- 
tercession. The drama of redemption was exhibited with 
new scenery, and more imposing stage-effects. The good 
people who had persuaded themselves that the reign of 
vulgar superstition was at an end, at all events in Boston, 
were confounded when they saw the well-worn imagery 
of the Apocalypse start into life, and the faded pictures 
of damnation glow once more on the walls of modern 
meeting-houses. The fetishism they thought obsolete was 
rampant still in high places. Men in black coats and 
white neck-ties beat the tomtom as vigorously as New- 
Zealanders, and called on their idol as lustily as the 
priests of Baal. 

Now, then, was the time to get rid of Parker. He was 
weak, ailing, prostrate. A combined assault at this junc- 
ture, by the combined spirits of earth and heaven, might, 
perchance, overthrow him. The word was given j the 
faithful were ready ; a simultaneous movement upon the 
Holy Seat was made. That all the forces might be used, 



FAILING HEALTH. 495 

and no atom of momentum lost, it was recommended that 
men and women, wherever they might be, — in the shop 
or on the street, — should pray for Mr. Parker daily when 
the clock struck one. A few samples of these " addresses 
to the throne of grace " will tell better than any description 
the method and spirit of the evangelical tacticians. They 
are taken from the journal, where Mr. Parker had pre- 
served them in connection with one or two other speci- 
mens of the superstition of the nineteenth century. 

" O Lord ! send confusion and distraction into his study this 
afternoon, and prevent his finishing his labors for to-morrow ; 
or, if he shall attempt to desecrate thy holy day by attempting 
to speak to the people, meet him there, Lord, and confound 
him, so that he shall not be able to speak." 

" O Lord ! put a hook in this man's jaws, so that he may not 
be able to speak." 

" O Lord ! meet this infidel on his way, who, like another 
Saul of Tarsus, is persecuting the Church of God ; and cause a 
light to shine around him, which shall bring him trembling to 
the earth, and make him an able defender of the faith which he 
has so long labored to destroy." 

" O Lord ! if this man will still persist in speaking in public, 
induce the people to leave him, and to come up and fill this 
house instead of that." 

" Lord, we know that we cannot argue him down ; and, the 
more we say against him, the more will the people flock after 
him, and the more will they love and revere him. O Lord ! 
what shall be done for Boston it thou dost not take this and 
some other matters in hand ? " 

The following prayer was offered by Elder Burnham, 
who, in an afternoon sermon, said, — 

" Hell never vomited forth a more wicked and blasphemous 
monster than Theodore Parker ; and it is only the mercies of 
Jesus Christ which have kept him from eternal damnation al- 
ready." 



496 THEODORE PARKER. 

After such an outburst, the petition that follows has a 
savor of tenderness : — 

" O Lord ! if this man is a subject of grace, convert him, 
and bring him into the kingdom of thy dear Son ; but, if he is 
beyond the reach of the saving influence of the gospel, remove 
him out of the way, and let his influence die with him." 

There were some who looked on the strong man's sick- 
ness as a judgment on him for his impiety ; and some, it 
is rumored, regarded it as an anticipative answer to the 
prayers. 

Mr. Parker took the nonsense pleasantly, so far as it 
concerned himself. In a letter, after speaking of it, he 
lets his thoughts run in other channels : — 

" The robins have come ; the blue-birds long ago. Give my 
love to the pope. Don't tell the pope this (about the prayers) ; 
for I fear I shall miss the cardinalship, and my black hat is 
almost worn out. I think the robes will come over in ' The 
Leviathan.' " 

But, as a sign of the times, the " revival " made him sad, 
and stirred up within him the theological zeal, which 
never had wholly slept, but which had temporarily yielded 
to a more practical "enthusiasm of humanity." The two 
sermons, " A False and True Revival of Religion," and 
" The Revival of Religion which we Need," showed the 
old fires still burning, their heat as fierce, their splendor 
as awful, their beauty as fascinating, as ever, — fires of 
wrath, and flames of prophecy, at once angering some, and 
kindling others with hope. 

The same ' spirit animated the four remarkable dis- 
courses which he delivered before the Progressive Friends, 
in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in June, 1858. They 
are among his most characteristic efforts : — 

1. Of the Progressive Development of the Conception 
of God in the Bible. 



FAILING HEALTH. 497 

2. Of the Ecclesiastical Conception of God, and its In- 
adequacy to meet the Wants of Science and Religion. 

3. Of the Philosophical or Natural Idea of God, and 
its Fitness for all the Wants of Science and Religion. 

4. Of the Soul's Normal Delight in the Infinite God. 
By this time it had become plain, that, if Mr. Parker 

would not take care of himself, his friends must take care 
of him. In August, a new but already intimate friend, 
alarmed by the danger, invited him to take a wagon jour- 
ney of two or three weeks. It is thus described in a letter 
to his friends, Mrs. Apthorp and Miss Hunt, in Europe : — 

Palazzo Baby Squeal, Piazza Paddy Smell, 

Newton Corner, Mass., Last Sunday in 

Dog Days, 1858. 

Dearest Sallie and Lizzie, — I shall put the two sisters 
in one letter this day. the last of my vacation. 

You think "fleas the only troubles," do you ? What if you 
had flies biting, baby squealing, mother yelling, and doors slam- 
ming, all at the same time ? " But there is no life without its 
inconveniences," as the toad said while under the harrow, or 
might have said if his tongue had been loosed. 

Don't think you are the only voyagers on earth, or that 
Europe is the only country fit to travel in. Have not I, also, 
had my journey ? I returned on Thursday afternoon from a 
little ride of seven hundred miles with Joseph Lyman. You 
know Joseph Lyman, Judge Lyman's son, of your own town, — 
a fine fellow, one of the most gentlemanly of men, " the best 
traveller in the world," thoroughly eupeptic, and of course 
good-natured (the stomach is the organ of good temper), 
conversable, and highly intelligent. Hannah calls him " the 
lover," — not hers, not Beards, but mine. (He does come over, 
sometimes, Sunday night ; and takes me to ride, &c.) Didn't 
we have a good time ? His " wagon " is a wonderful " one-hoss 
shay" on four wheels, which cost four hundred and fifty dollars. 
Thomas Goddard made it ; but for modesty it is called the 
" wagon." We rode about thirty miles a day, at the rate of 
from three to five miles an hour : so we were always ten or 
twelve hours a day in the open air. Beautiful weather all the 
42* 



498 THEODORE PARKER. 

time. We never staid in a great town — save one night in 
Albany, which we could not avoid. Here is our route : To 
Concord (Mass.) ; through Lancaster, Princeton, Fitzwilliam, to 
Keene (N.H.) ; to Charleston, Windsor (Vt), Comstock, Slier, 
burne, Montpelier, and Burlington, to Lake Saranac in the 
Adirondack Mountains (New York) ; down Lake Champlain, 
and by Fort Ticonderoga and Fort Edward to Saratoga, Troy, 
Albany ; down the Hudson to Newburg ; taence through the 
whole length of Connecticut to Dudley in Massachusetts ; 
thence, vid Hopkinton Springs, home again, — seven hundred 
miles in twenty-one days, with no accident, no delay. Now, we 
saw no kings, only would-besj and no queens, only supposed-to- 
bes; and no pope, not even a cardinal. Oh ! where is my car- 
dinal's hat ? What faithless friends you are, not to have ex- 
torted from the pope this dream of my life, and consummation 
of all my hopes, — the cardinal's hat ! Only think how I should 
sit on the platform of the Music Hall, with my red hat and my 
robes ! How I should sit in my brass coach with my Bruschi 
horses, and be called Eminence, and high and mighty Prince ! 
I don't quite forgive you. Surely a woman could get round the 
pope, if she would. But you don't care any thing about me ; 
that is clear. If I should die suddenly, be sure the " crowner's 
verdict " would be, " Lack of a cardinal's hat." 

But we did see such neatness, thrift, comfort, and well-dif- 
fused wealth, as no other land in all the world can offer. If a 
Southern slaveholder could ride where we went, and see what 
he must, he would at once be convinced that his miserable sys- 
tem was a wretched failure. We went in by-roads, lived all the 
time in small towns, rested at the little country taverns, and not 
once saw a ragged American, and but one American at all 
affected by drink. Yet there is a great difference in the various 
places. The superiority of New-England civilization over all 
the rest of America is quite clear. In the north and" west of 
Vermont this is damaged by the Canadian French, who take 
down the tone of the Yankees. In Western Massachusetts and 
Connecticut, the Dutch element of New York shows itself in 
the greater slovenliness of all things. New-Englanders marry 
Dutch girls ; and the housekeeping shows the degeneracy of 
the breed. Dear old Massachusetts ! I never loved her so well. 
Puritanic New England ! it is she that has shaped America, and 



FAILING HEALTH. 499 

will one day give her a grander destiny than she dreams of 
yet. In Italy, France, and Germany you see the power of the 
few, to whom all else is sacrificed or has been. Much beauty 
came from that arrangement, — grand palaces, magnificent 
churches, statues, pictures, and things fair to look on. How they 
haunt one's dreams years after they have faded from the sight! 
But in democratic America it is all different : all is for the peo- 
ple, of the people, by the people. The plough is in the hands 
of its owner. Shoemaker Wilson is one of the ablest men in 
the American Senate. Blacksmith Banks is the best governor 
Massachusetts has had since I was born. How we have altered 
style in America ! The last Sunday that I preached, Mr. 
Chase, governor of Ohio, with its three million two hundred 
and fifty thousand people, sat there with all the rest. I tried to 
reach him and speak to him after meeting ; but so many men and 
women came to bid me good-by, that I could not accomplish it. 
Riding home, I met Banks, governor of a million two hundred 
thousand of Massachusetts, in a common country one-horse 
wagon, which cost seventy-five or a hundred dollars, going 
to dine with his brother-governor at a tavern, and talk over 
the affairs of five millions of people. What if the Durchlaucht 
of Hesse-Homburg, ruler of a hundred and fifty thousand, and 

the of , with five hundred thousand, were to meet and 

dine ! How many faults New England has ! but, God be 
thanked, how many blessings ! What a present for the peo- 
ple ! What a future for all ! 

One thing struck me with astonishment in the woods of 
New York ; for you must know we went fifty miles bodily 
into the " forest primeval," " the murmuring pines and the 
hemlocks : " it was the uncommon fertility of the human race 
in the log-cabins. They are all crowded with babies. Often 
the mother, a woman of twenty-eight, perhaps, stood at the 
door (with a hoop on), a baby of six weeks in her arms ; another 
of a year old stood at her side ; then one of two, one of three, 
four, five, six, and more. Really it seemed as if the wood was 
alive with babies, and the trees spawned as the waters do. 

Then the letter runs on with charming personalities, 
which lack of space alone forbids quoting. 



500 THEODORE PARKER. 

Parker was the most jocund of travellers. He had the 
merry exuberance of a boy when out of doors in pleasant 
weather. He greeted the trees by name, and welcomed 
the familiar flowers, introducing them to his companions, 
with their family connections, and an account of their 
pedigree. The landscape was on familiar terms with him. 
The shape of the country told him the secrets of its flora : 
he knew what wild flower must be hiding behind the rock, 
in the meadow, in the intricacies of the " stump fence," 
in the shade of the grove, beside the brook ; and in a 
moment he was out of the wagon in quest of his prize, 
pausing to pick the berries on the stalk, — "a feast for the 
gods." If he passed a stone-quarry, he must needs stop, 
watch the work, and talk with the men, pointing out to 
them peculiarities in the formation, which might be availed 
of to assist their labor and secure the full value of its 
results. The mower attracts his attention : he examines 
the scythe, — the handling of which he had not forgotten, 
— explains the make, and probably drops a piece of in- 
formation that will be of use to the farmer the next time 
he has occasion to buy. "What is that man doing? 
Cradling wheat. I must take a turn at that." So out he 
jumps, springs over the bars, and invites the man to take 
a rest while he performs the task. The gentleman in the 
city coat and hat proves equal to the occasion : the smile 
of incredulity disappears from the farmer's face in a few 
minutes ; and in half an hour he is convinced that his 
coadjutor must have been a farmer once. He mingles in 
the discussions at the country inn ; listens to the village 
oracle, confronts him, puts questions to him he cannot 
answer, brings forward facts he cannot dispute, and ends 
by instructing the crowd that had gathered on the true 
state of the country and the real nature of the issues then 
pending. The forlorn bear tethered to a tree, or con- 
fined within a small enclosure in the tavern-yard, always 
had his sympathy. He could not pass Bruin by, but 



FAILING HEALTH. 501 

watched his motions, fed him, called him by pet names 
till the last moment. In travelling, the peculiar grotesque- 
ness of the man came out. A friend tells me, that jour- 
neying one winter's day from Boston to New York where 
he was engaged to lecture, and being detained at New 
Haven, he kept himself warm by jumping Jim Crow on 
the bridge that spans the gloomy station. The exube- 
rance of life was irrepressible. It made him a great 
recipient of the exuberant vitality of Nature, which flowed 
in at all the pores of his being, and quickened to the very 
last moment the latent vigor of his frame. Contact with 
Nature always revived him. On a sultry summer's day 
by the seaside he was seen with a scythe, mowing down 
the Canada thistle that was threatening to overspread the 
fields. They should get no farther than the roadside if 
he could prevent. The idlers at the hotel thought he 
must be in great want of occupation ; but he came from 
his task more refreshed than fatigued. 

But no excursions by water, or expeditions on land in 
open wagons, are a match for hereditary disease and exces- 
sive toil. He could not be idle. On his return from this 
little trip, forty letters were waiting for him : ten more 
came in straightway. Work of other kinds had accumu- 
lated ; and he w r as not the man to shirk any portion of it. 
In the autumn, preaching began again, and lecturing, and 
parish work, and fugitive-slave work, and Kansas work, 
and work of various unexpected kinds. 

Frovi the Journal. 

Oct. 5, 1858. 

The Music Hall opened three weeks ago, and has been 
filled with quite large congregations. Our course of lectures 
begins to-morrow. Mr. Sanborn gives the introductory poem. 

This course of lectures, the " Fraternity " course, estab- 
lished by his own friends, .gave Mr. Parker his first chance 
to be heard in Boston as a lecturer. He was not back- 






502 THEODORE PARKER. 



* 



ward to use it. The lectures on historic Americans — 
Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Washington — were intend- 
ed and partially prepared for this season. The Franklin 
was carefully written out and delivered. The Adams was 
given, though not fully written out. The others were 
completed from copious notes by the hand of his devoted 
friend Mr. Lyman, who cherished his memory as tenderly 
as he cherished his failing life, and hastened his own 
decline by his unwearied toil over the literary remains 
of the man he loved as a brother, and revered as a bene- 
factor. Like all Mr. Parker's work, the lectures were 
designed to instruct and fortify the American people in 
the essential ideas of their institutions. 

Heroic remedies are not always best even for heroes. 
The effusion of water on the chest which followed the 
earlier sickness it took nearly eight months to subdue. 
In the mean time, during the summer, a fistula developed 
itself, producing painful and alarming consequences. He 
lost twenty pounds of flesh ; had cough, night-sweats, and 
other dangerous symptoms. It seemed as if the end was 
nigh. A surgical operation in October gave relief, and 
the sick man fancied himself delivered from his tormentors ; 
but, on getting into a railroad-car to attend the funeral of 
a little boy drowned by accident, — a service rendered 
from pure humanity, — he strained and wrenched himself 
in delicate parts of the body. The brave man was not 
daunted; still professed to think he should live to be 
seventy or eighty ; promised to be more moderate in future ; 
staid in his library ; had his meals brought up to him ; 
drove out every day ; and had the best medical and sur- 
gical advice, which he had too much faith not to take. 
The anxiety of his friends deepened. Already, in August, 
many members of his society joined in beseeching him to 
extend the term of his vacation to the utmost limit that 
prudence required, and by no means to allow his strong 
desire to be at his post to override their united wishes and 



FAILING HEALTH. 



5°3 



settled convictions. Weakness enforced what considera- 
tion would scarcely have granted. As the year drew to a 
close, work had to be dropped, — all but the preaching, 
which continued with but few interruptions, and those only 
when it was physically impossible for him to stand even 
by grasping the desk. 

The journal terminates abruptly now, save for a few jot- 
tings in small books which can be carried in his pocket. 
On Jan. i, 1859, this entry is made : — 

" It is Saturday night, — eve of the first day of the new year. I 
have finished my sermon for to-morrow ; and I have nothing to 
do but indulge my feelings for a minute, and gather up my 
soul. 

" This is the first New- Year's day that I was ever sick. Now 
I have been a prisoner almost three months, living in my cham- 
ber or my study. I have been out of doors but thrice since 
Sunday last. The doctor says I mend, and I quote him to my 
friends ; but I have great doubts as to the result. It looks as if 
this were the last of my New- Year's days on earth. I felt so 
when I gave each gift to-day ; yet few men have more to live 
for than I. It seems as if I had just begun a great work ; yet, 
if I must abandon it, I will not complain. Some abler and bet- 
ter man will take my place, and do more successfully what I 
have entered on. The Twenty-eighth will soon forget me : a 
few Sundays will satisfy their tears. Some friends may linger 
long about my grave, and be inly sad for many a day." 

Three pages later, the last word in the bulky quarto, is 
a direction for a 

MONUMENT. 

" When I die, I wish to be buried in the old burying-place in 
Lexington, where my fathers since 1709 — four generations of 
them — have laid their venerable bones. I wish to be put near 
them. At my head let there be a plain blue or green slate-stone, 
tnus I a.ib. I > w lth n0 ornament, no black paint. I mark the 
stone ' — — as double, in case my wife may also subsequently 



504 THEODORE PARKER. 

wish to be laid beside me, as she often says : if not, let it be 
single. A. may contain this inscription : — 

THEODORE PARKER, 

(SON OF JOHN AND HANNAH.) 
Born Aug. 24, 18 10 ; died — 

The sermon, " What Religion may do for a Man," was 
preached with great difficulty on Jan. 2. He felt that it 
was the last time ; and it was. The next Sunday, this little 
note, in pencil, was read to the congregation met in Music 
Hall : — 

Sunday Morning, Jan. 9, 1859. 

Well-beloved and long-tried Friends, — I shall not 
speak to you to-day ; for this morning, a little after four o'clock, 
I had a slight attack of bleeding in the lungs or throat. I 
intended to preach on " The Religion of Jesus, and the Christi- 
anity of the Church ; or, The Superiority of Good- Will to Man 
over Theological Fancies." 

I hope you will not forget the contribution for the poor, whom 
we have with us always. I don't know when I shall again look 
upon your welcome faces, which have so often cheered my 
spirit when my flesh was weak, 

May we do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our 
God, and his blessing will be upon us here and hereafter ; for 
his infinite love is with us for ever and ever. 
Faithfully your friend, 

Theodore Parker. 

The " slight attack of bleeding " was a serious hemor- 
rhage of the lungs. There was now no time to lose, A 
meeting of the parish, called on the spot, voted a year's 
salary to the pastor, more if necessary, to enable him to 
seek complete repose from every kind of care. Experi- 
enced physicians pronounced the case grave. Tubercles 
had formed, and were increasing. The disease he had 
inherited had already progressed far. The chances of 
recovery were declared to be as one in ten. The stout 
soldier laughs at the odds. " If that is all, I'll conquer. 



FAILING HEALTH. 505 

I have fought ninety-nine against one, — yes, nine hundred 
and ninety-nine against one, — and conquered. Please 
God, I will again ; sursum corda." It is decided that he 
must go to the West Indies at once ; thence to Europe ; 
thence wherever the chances should look brightest. 

I shall leave the reader to imagine the grief of Mr. 
Parker's friends and parishioners when the truth they had 
feared broke upon them. Any who will may read the 
letters that passed between pastor and people. They are 
printed at length in Mr. Weiss's book. Tender and touch- 
ing they are, but no more so than was sincerely felt on 
both sides. Private letters of sympathy and manly or 
womanly love came in such numbers, that the sufferer 
printed a card in "The New- York Tribune," excusing him- 
self from replying to them all ; a notice that only brought 
fresh tributes from people who had refrained from writing 
because unwilling to burden him with the care of answer- 
ing. Now that they were sure he would not answer, they 
would speak. These heart-roses covered his sick-bed, and 
filled him with their fragrance. So much of the odor as 
he could he wafted back. As he lay in his pain, tender 
thoughts came to him of all he loved, of many who had 
not loved him ; and in all directions the white doves flew 
from his window with messages of good will, thanks for 
old kindnesses, gratitude for confidence and sympathy, 
generous acknowledgment of smallest services rendered 
and long forgotten by the doer, sweet reminiscences of 
past joy, praise for good deeds done and good words 
spoken for freedom, apologies for imaginary troubles or 
offences, — all in manly, simple language, without a weak 
expression of complaint, with the natural submission that 
belonged to his faith. " If I recover," he says in a part- 
ing note to Salmon P. Chase (and it is in the spirit of them 
ajl), — "if I recover, — and the doctors tell me I have one 
chance in~ten, — only nine chances against me to one in 
my favor, — I shall be thankful for the experience of affec- 
43 



506 THEODORE PARKER. 

tion and friendship which my illness has brought from all 
parts of the land : if I do not recover, I shall pass off joy- 
fully, with an entire trust in that Infinite Love which cares 
more for me than I care for myself." 

To S. P. Andrews. 

Boston, Jan. 27, 1859. 

My dear Sam, — I am not well enough to see you : it will 
make my heart beat too fast. I sail — Bear, and Miss S., and 
Dr. Howe also — in about ten days for the West Indies; 
thence to Europe, perhaps, in May. Who knows what the 
result will be ? For complete recovery, the chances in my favor 
are one out of ten. So the doctors say. I don't rate it higher. 
I am ready for either alternative, but am still full of hope that 
the human mortal life will hold out long enough for me to ham- 
mer over again some of the many irons I have laid in the fire 
and got ready for the anvil. It does seem to me I shall have 
time left to finish certain pieces of work. But I will not com- 
plain of the dear Mother (who long ago admonished me that 
I must not cherish long hopes in a short world) if the kind 
Hand that brought me here shall also soon take me away to that 
world " which eye hath not seen," &c. You and I have had 
many a good time together ; and I hoped we should enjoy many 
more. Indeed, I laid out my life to work publicly and hard till 
sixty, and then have a quiet afternoon till eighty for getting 
in my hay ; but, if my hour strikes at forty-eight, let not you 
nor me complain. 

My wife sends love to your wife ; whereto add mine, and 
believe me 

Faithfully, affectionately, and yours, 

Theodore. 

To Rev. William R. Alger. 

Boston, Jan. 28, 1859. 
My dear Alger, — I thank you for the flowers and the yet 
sweeter fragrance of the note which came with them. They 
bloom on my table, while it sheds its unseen influence else- 
where. I don't know whether I sail to life or death ; but heaven 
is never a distant port, and one need not complain if he gets 
there sooner than he laid out for. But I leave a deal of work 



FAILING HEALTH. 507 

half done, and more only begun, which I meant to finish, and 
gladly would. I have rejoiced in your noble words, and make 
no doubt they will grow nobler yet as you change time into life, 
and natural talents into lofty character. God bless your brave 
spirit, and keep you faithful ! What could I wish more or bet- 
ter ? 

Give my regards to your wife, and believe me 
Yours faithfully, 

Theodore Parker. 

To Mrs. Lydia M. Child. 

Boston, Jan. 20, 1859. 
My dear, kind Friend, — Many thanks for your welcome 
letter, which I have strength only thus poorly to reply to. I 
knew you when you did not know me; and I have much to 
thank you for in early as well as in later days. I met you at 
your brother's in Watertown in 1833 ; and you then spoke some 
cheering words to a young fellow fighting his way to education. 
God bless you for that, and for much more ! Remember me 
kindly to your brave husband. 

Yours faithfully, 

Theodore Parker. 

He has not forgotten the sonnet he wrote long be- 
fore : — 

" Through crooked paths Thou hast conducted me, 

And thorns oft forced my timid flesh to bleed : 

Still I rejoiced my Leader's hand to see, 

Trusting my Father in my hour of need. 

When in the darkness of my early youth, 

Stumbling and groping for a better way, 

Through riven clouds streamed down the light of Truth, 

And made it morning with refulgent ray, 

Along the steep and weary path I trod, 

With none to guide, and few to comfort me. 

I felt the presence of the eternal God, 

That in his hand 'twas blessedness to be, 
Finding relief from woes in consciousness of thee." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE DEPARTURE. — THE SEARCH. 

Theodore Parker, with his wife, Miss Stevenson, and 
Mr. George Cabot, left the house in Exeter Place, on the 
3d of February, with a resolute determination to use his 
one chance in ten for health, — too resolute, in fact. He 
who too fiercely fights his own disease may become its ally. 
He sat in his room at the Astor House, gaunt and gray, 
but firm, as if he were the carer, and not the cared-f or. He 
knew the contents of each box and bag, where each pack- 
age and flask was put. When the little procession moved 
from the hotel, he staid till the last to see that nothing 
had been dropped : then walked sturdily to Jersey City, 
where " The Karnac " lay. All was ready for him on 
board. A dear friend from afar put flowers — violets and 
carnations — in his state-room. Dr. and Mrs. Howe were 
there to greet him with manly sympathy and feminine 
grace. They were to be his companions on the voyage. 
To the few friends who came to say farewell he said little ; 
responded gratefully to their expressions of affection, 
but faintly to their words of hope ; was silent and thought- 
ful, though not dejected. The steamer sailed on the 
8th. On the 3d of March it reached its destination, — 
Fredericksted, West End, Santa Cruz ; having touched 
at Nassau, St. Thomas, Nuevitas, Puerto Plata, and St. 
John, and tarried four or five days at Havana. The 
voyage, which rough weather made uncomfortable at start- 
508 



THE DEPARTURE. — THE SEARCH 509 

ing, was afterwards pleasant. The sea became smooth, 
•the air soft, the sky beautifully tender. Nature did her 
best for the weary man. He lay on the deck for hours, 
or sat in cool and shady spots. But the restless mind 
would not be still. "All my life-schemes lie. prostrate." 
" I stand up to the chin in my grave." " Fourteen years to- 
day since I rode into Boston to preach at the Melodeon. 
I enlisted for a thirty-years' war; but am wounded, and 
driven off the field, before half that time is over." " R. 
W. Emerson is preaching at the Music Hall to-day." " I 
wonder if they remembered the anniversary." " Those 
precious guns in my study — what will become of them ? 
They must be kept in a safe place. They will belong to 
the Commonwealth when I die." " Mr. Shackford would 
be a good man to preach." Then came plans of work 
yet to be done. " I must write out and finish my last ser- 
mon. I must write my autobiography." He felt and 
thought out a letter to the Twenty-eighth Congregational 
Society, and began to compose it. At every stopping- 
place he went ashore with his note-book, and made the 
most of his opportunity to pick up bits of knowledge. 
Night and day, on shipboard, he walked the rounds of his 
parish in a visionary way, asking himself, " Who is sick ? 
Who is sick no more ? How is poor old Mr. Cass, the 
grape-pruner in Chambers-street Court ? I must send 
him some strawberries in their season." 

Arriving at Santa Cruz, hardly able to crawl out of the 
vessel, he begins to labor like a savan on a hurried 
voyage of exploration, — noting every tree, shrub, plant, 
flower ; classifying the products and minerals ; studying the 
natives and the strangers, the increase of population, pur- 
suits, value of properties ; in a word, exhausting the island 
and everybody in it, and putting all he sees and thinks 
into most instructive and delightful letters to his friends 
in America and Europe, — letters betraying no sign of 
ill health in their texture, though, in an occasional sen- 
43* . 



5io THEODORE PARKER. 

tence, dropping hints thereof. The hilarious nature rol- 
licks in breezy fun about the boys and girls, the ducks 
and cockadoodles, negroes, pigs, " long-nosed and grave- 
looking animals, most of them coal-black, and, like Zac- 
cheus small of stature, looking as if they had been 
through a revival, and were preparing for the ministry." 

His first visit, made the day after his arrival, was to the 
Protestant burial-ground, — " the terminus ad quem I am 
travelling, it may be. It is not an attractive-looking place : 
none in New England that I know is less so. There the 
grass comes ' creeping, creeping, creeping, everywhere : ' 
here only a rugged, coarse, rank sedge comes in tufts to 
supply its place. The trees look ungenial. The Bombax 
ceiba is the biggest, but not inviting, eaten up with its 
parasites." 

From the Journal. 

March 13. 

Found the monument of Rev. Henry Walker of Charles- 
town, Mass. ; died 1838. I knew him. He studied in Germany, 
and brought thence the first copy of Strauss, I think, that came 
to America. I met him at Ripley's, and borrowed his book in 
1836 or 1837. He left his library to Rev. James Walker. Here 
lie his remains, with many more of such as came here after 
health, and found only a grave. It is not a pleasant place to lie 
in, with the sedgy grass growing in bunches as high as my 
head. 

There are three other cemeteries, — one Danish, one 
American, one Catholic : — 

" The Danish looks most inviting. I change my mind, and 
think I shall prefer the Danish to the dark spot under the 
Bombax ceiba in the English." 

But there are more cheerful objects than these : — 

" The weather is magnificent. Such clear skies ! On the 
wharf at St. Thomas I could clearly see Santa Cruz, forty miles 
off. The nights are as splendid almost as the days : the stars 



THE DEPARTURE.— THE SEARCH. 511 

are so large ! The scintillation is peculiar. Those near the 
zenith twinkle but little. Oh, if Desor were here, or John L. 
Russell, or Dr. Cabot ! " 

Nor is the humanity of the island utterly discouraging. 
He finds a Rev. Mr. Dubois, " an excellent man, full of 
kindness and industry. He takes great pains in the noble 
work of elevating the colored people • but the whites do 
not help the movement, or much favor it. Mr. Dubois has 
a friendly society of about three hundred colored people, 
who pay a little sum each week to aid their needy breth- 
ren. The most interesting sight on the island is the street 
full of colored people on Sunday, going to meeting. Soon 
as possible, they get shoes and other clothing, and help up 
their self-respect." 

The letters to his male friends are crammed with infor- 
mation in regard to the material and political condition 
of the island, the imports and exports, productive powers 
and agencies, classes of the population, number of work- 
men, soldiers, slaves, the state of personal and social 
morality, amount of rainfall, interspersed with various 
comment and speculation on the future prospects of 
the people. The letters to his physician, Dr. Cabot in 
Boston, give a painfully-detailed account of the progress 
of his malady as judged by symptoms, the state of the 
abductor muscles, the respiratory organs, the precise char- 
acter of his cough, the appeal ances of his eyes, his sen- 
sations in different temperatures, with the exact locality 
of each. 

The letters to his female friends bloom with color, and 
sparkle with wit. The bright birds flit through them ; the 
gorgeous flowers spread their glowing leaves. The Eng- 
lish Episcopal service is waggishly taken off ; the West-In- 
dian aristocracy is deliciously caricatured, with a fine sense 
of humor solid with truth. The letters are "works," or 
would have been to a less irrepressible man. By the 19th 



512 THEODORE PARKER. 

of April he has finished the " Letter to the Twenty-eighth 
Congregational Society," — a volume detailing his experi- 
ence as a minister. " A sick man's work," he calls it, " writ- 
ten under many difficulties, amid continual interruption 
besides what weakness occasioned, — written in tears of 
blood. No work of mine, perhaps, cost me such birth- 
pangs ; for I was too sick to write, and yet must be 
delivered of my book, and that, too, in such a place ! " 

How could such a man get well ? Nature had no chance 
with him. His fires were always burning. Thought and 
feeling perpetually consumed him. He could not be 
quiet. The incessant nervous irritation wasted his 
strength away. Between ecstasy and despondency he 
was always torn. If he could have forgotten himself, 
stretched himself out on the piazza, or beneath the trees 
without caring what their botanical name might be, and 
let the natural influences stream into his frame, he might 
have lived ; but he spent more than he gained. 

Then, again, he knew too much about his own condition 
for a sick man's good. His finger was never off his own 
pulse ; he weighed and counted his breaths ; was more 
intimately acquainted with himself than nurse or doctor ; 
and could not desist from acting as his own medical ad- 
viser. This is enough to create the atmosphere of a sick- 
room anywhere. It is like a doomed man's listening to 
the erecting of his scaffold. 

While at the island, he felt comparatively strong; could 
walk with tolerable ease ; had a good appetite, an excel- 
lent digestion ; slept, on the whole, well ; gained in color, 
weight, and vigor ; rode three or four times a week on a 
pony ; his face was brown and ruddy, his eye clear ; but 
the cough continued. The two months at Santa Cruz 
wrought on him no essential benefit : the critical symp- 
toms were worse. On the nth of May he left the island, 
and returned to St. Thomas to take the steamer of the 
1 6th for Southampton. On the voyage to the latter place 



THE DEPARTURE. — THE SEARCH. 513 

he lost seven pounds of flesh. The cough and the ex- 
pectoration increased. He began to lose faith in his 
powers of recuperation. Some confidence ht had in the 
reviving influences of civilization, but not much. Even 
the misery of sea-sickness was subdued by the more terri- 
ble malady which kept him prostrate. He was in a poor 
plight on reaching Southampton, the 1st of June ; but, the 
same evening, he went on to London. 

Here less than anywhere could he rest. It was the 
charmed season in London ; crowds of people to visit, 
crowds of things to see. The eleven days there did duty 
for thirty. There were letters to be read and written, 
neither without emotion and pain. He had not been at 
Radley's Hotel, Blackfriars, forty-eight hours, when an old 
gentleman was announced, — Mr. Brabant, seventy-nine 
years old, father-in-law of Mr. Hennell. Miss Wink- 
worth and her sister came, Mr. and Mrs. James Marti- 
neau, Prof. H. D. Rogers and his wife. Mr. William H. 
Seward, then in London, showed him politeness. John 
Bright got him a place in the House of Commons to hear 
the great debate which led to the expulsion of the Derby 
ministry. 

A visit that touched Mr. Parker deeply was from a com- 
parative stranger, — Mr. Thomas Cholmondeley, a nephew 
of Bishop Heber, of Oriel College, Oxford, once a pupil 
of Arthur Hugh Clough, afterwards a student in Germany. 
He had been in America five years before ; had heard Mr. 
Parker preach ; had called on him at his house ; was im- 
pressed by his power, and interested in his character : for 
Cholmondeley himself was a man of high aspirations and 
intellectual aims, though in religion, albeit of broad views, 
not a pronounced rationalist ; indeed, at the time of his 
visit to America, he was inclined to Puseyism. His inter- 
est, however, was in ideas rather than doctrines. He 
brought letters to Emerson ; was eager to know our fore- 
most men; a man of progress, as was evident from his 



514 THEODORE PARKER. 

response to a toast given by a Plymouth man on Fore- 
fathers' Day : " May the spirit which brought the Pilgrim 
Fathers here return again to England ! and may we have 
a commonwealth there, if not as great as yours, at least as 
happy and as well ordered ! " This Mr. Cholmondeley, 
hearing that Mr. Parker was in London, and apprehend- 
ing that he might be inadequately supplied with funds for 
travel and sojourn and medical service, delicately put his 
purse at the invalid's disposal. The kindness fell on a 
tender heart, and made a deep impression. It was de- 
clined, but with gratitude. Mr. Cholmondeley inherited 
property later, but soon surrendered it all ; for he died in 
1864 in the same city where Parker breathed his last, 
and perhaps mingled his dust with the same soil. 

But, of all the visits the pilgrim received, none gave him 
more delight than that of Ellen Craft, his colored pa- 
rishioner, whom, nearly ten years before, he had helped 
away to England for safety from the slave-hunters. It all 
came back to him, — the danger, the fear, the flight ; the 
journey to Brookline, accompanied by John Parkman and 
Miss Stevenson, in a close carriage, he himself armed 
with a hatchet in case of necessity ; the bringing the fugi- 
tive into the refuge of his own house ; the subsequent 
marriage in the boarding-house on " Nigger Hill " with 
Bible and sword. For all these years she had been safe, 
and came now to greet her friend and savior. Such 
remembrance touched him more than any attention from 
people of station; strengthened him, but weakened him 
too. 

There were visits to be made as well as received. He 
was desirous of seeing Henry Thomas Buckle ; but the 
author of " The History of Civilization in England " was 
not at home. His heart had been set, too, on seeing 
Frances Power Cobbe, with whom he had corresponded, 
and whose books he ranked among the greatest written by 
a woman's pen ; but neither was she in Londoi. Invita- 



THE DEPARTURE. — THE SEARCH. 515 

tions to breakfasts, dinners, lunches, were incessant, but 
had to be declined. Once only he lunched at Rev. James 
Martineau's, where he met, for the first time, Francis Wil- 
liam Newman, John James Taylor, Mr. Ireson, and a few 
others. Eminent men of the Liberal party, coadjutors of 
Mr. Bright, he saw under pleasant circumstances, but not 
as closely as he could have wished. 

He was always going about to interesting places, — 
Westminster Hall, Guildhall, the Tower, Billingsgate, St. 
George's Yard, the British Museum, the College of Sur- 
geons, the Reform Club. He heard Huxley lecture, and 
Martineau preach ; and listened to a charity-sermon at 
St. Paul's, where " eight thousand children sat alone, and 
fainted with hunger while they listened to a wretched ser- 
mon on human depravity, or sang the litanies they had 
been made to commit to memory." He called himself 
very prudent ; went into no damp buildings ; was home 
early in the evening ; avoided festive excitement of all 
kinds. But the cloudy, heavy air of the city, thick with 
coal-smoke, irritated the cough, and increased the expec- 
torations. On the 12th of June, London was left for 
Paris ; the journey via Folkestone and Boulogne being 
made by day in twelve hours. 

Scarcely was he settled in his lodgings, Hotel de Lon- 
dres, 8 Rue St. Hyacinthe, when Charles Sumner called, — 
" the same dear old Sumner as he used to be before that 
scoundrel laid him low." The next day, the two friends 
drove about the city six hours ; and, the drive over, Parker 
went about on foot for more exercise, while Mr. Sumner 
went home to rest. Paris was, if possible, a more exhaust- 
ing field of recovery than London. It were idle to attempt 
to tell what was seen and done during the short week 
spent there. Yet he writes to Dr. Cabot in Boston, " I 
became a mollusk, an oyster, in the West Indies, and 
exercised almost exclusively those nerves of vegetation 
which you discovered. After writing my 'Letter,' I 



$i6 THEODORE PARKER. 

dropped down into my molluscous condition ; and, when 
I saw one of the actual tenants of the mud at London, I 
said, ' Am I not a clam and a brother ? ' I never opened 
my mouth upon oyster; or even shrimp, except to speak 
to them respectfully, lest I should commit the crime 
against nature, and devour my own kind. In Switzerland 
I will be as gentle ' as a child that is weaned of its 
mother,' and behave myself 'like a sucking child.' " 

In Paris he consulted the doctors with the usual satis- 
faction. 

" What different counsel in doctors ! " he wrote in 1859. 
" Last October, Bowditch wanted me to go to the West Indies ; 
Dr. J. Jackson not. For hypophosphates, Dr. Flint of Boston, 
Dr. Bigelow of Paris ; against hypophosphates, Dr. Louis of 
Paris ; indifferent, or doubtful, Drs. Bowditch, Cabot, Moles- 
chott. For cod-liver oil, Cabot (moderate) ; against cod-liver oil, 
Drs. Louis and Bigelow. • Some think Jongh's is the best prepa- 
ration of the cod-liver oil: Dr. Moleschott thinks him a humbug 
and a liar ; his oil good for nothing. Bigelow recommends Bor- 
deaux wine ; Moleschott, Malaga before Bordeaux ; Bigelow 
and Cabot, Jackson and Bowditch, whiskey, brandy, &c. ; Moles- 
chott, pilled barley." 

Dr. Samuel Bigelow took him to Louis, who thought 
little of the cough or the expectoration ; thought the 
greenish-yellowish matter came from the bronchia, not 
from the decomposition of the tubercles ; had no faith in 
Dr. Winchester's hypophosphates, no more in the dis- 
gusting cod-liver oil ; recommended pillules de Blancard 
(iodide of iron), — one at breakfast, and one at supper. 
Both physicians advised, 1. Abstinence from all exertion; 
2. As much living in the open air as possible; 3. Abun- 
dance of nutritious food, especially ripe vegetables ; 4. 
Bordeaux or Neufchatel wines. Dr. Louis recommended 
Ems ; but Dr. Bigelow was indifferent. As regarded a 
winter-residence, Louis thought well of Egypt ; but the 
discomforts there, the chill of the Nile, and want of 



THE DEPA R TURE. — THE SEA RCH 517 

society, made that look unattractive. His thoughts turned 
toward Montreux for the autumn, and Rome for the win- 
ter. The doctors took a more cheerful view of his case 
than he did himself. He had thought of Scandinavia, 
Holland, the Rhine, Germany, plans of travel with Desor ; 
but these fine schemes were abandoned. On the 19th 
of June he is on the way to Dijon, looking toward the 
Lake of Geneva and Montreux. There he met' his dear 
friends Mr. and Mrs. Apthorp and Miss Hunt on the 
22d. His lodgings were ready for him, — fine rooms, 
commanding a glorious outlook ; the Dent du Midi, ten 
thousand feet high, snow-covered, towering up before 
him, twenty miles off. The weather had been wet, but 
was now delicious. Climate, scenery, accommodations, 
and, above all, the friendliest of friends, all conspired to 
aid the sick man's recovery. The apricots hung ripe on 
the garden-wall ; the figs were almost grown ; strawberries 
and cherries were plenty; and the sweetest care, bright- 
ened every day. The letters from Montreux — printed in 
Weiss, too many and too long to print here — are full of 
interest. Mr. Apthorp planned delightful excursions to 
Vevay, Chillon, Lausanne, Ferney, and the other charming 
spots in the neighborhood. He could walk five miles 
without fatigue. 

The Italian war was raging : of course he must know 
all about that ; and nothing comes amiss, — newspapers, 
cheap prints, maps, bulletins, pasquinades. The neigh- 
borhood is full of associations historical and romantic : 
he had them all by heart. The local histories, guide- 
books, descriptions, are all on his table, — out-of-the-way 
things he had picked up in obscure shops and stalls by 
the way as he came along. 

Late in July he varies the sweet monotony of his life 

at Montreux by a visit of a few weeks to his friend Prof. 

Desor at his mountain chalet. It was but a day's journey, 

on a good road, through pleasant villages and rich vine- 

44 



518 THEODORE PARKER. 

yards ; over passes that commanded glorious views of the 
high Alps, from the peaks of the Bernese Oberland to 
Mont Blanc. The ch&let itself had been a hunting-lodge ; 
but the good, hospitable Desor, to accommodate the sci- 
entific men who sought the mountains and each other in 
the summer, had built another house close by for his 
guests. A background of fir-trees furnished shelter and 
balmy fragrance. Little clearings in the wood gave the 
sunlight room to sport with the green grass and the red 
berries. The owner had extensive vineyards, which he 
cultivated, storing the rich juice in his cellar. 

Here Parker felt at home. He had his sheltered seat 
on the edge of the wood, his favorite fir-tree, double- 
headed, like the pine at Lexington. Here were refreshing 
excursions to spots famous or beautiful; and trees enough, 
small and large, for the invalid to try his perilous wood- 
chopping propensities on, as he did, against the advice of 
all his friends ; savans they were too. The summer was 
an intensely hot one ; and there, three thousand feet above 
the valley, it was warm enough to be out of doors many 
hours of the day. The invalid made the most of it ; 
soaked in the sunshine ; inhaled the balsam of the pines, 
and the aroma from the meadows ; drank the professor's 
good red wine, and felt his heart revive. His vigor 
increased ; his spirits rose ; he gained in weight. It 
seemed as if an arrest of his disease, at least, was 
probable. 

Not the least invigorating influence was the companion- 
ship of intelligent men ; some of them distinguished in 
their specialty ; all of them interested in living questions : 
some of them cordially sympathetic with his views ; all of 
them respecting his character, and appreciative of his 
mind. There was the noble Lorenz Kiichler, whom 
Theodore learned to love as a brother. The meals were 
enlivened by discussions on all subjects, scientific, politi- 
cal, philosophical, religious, — discussions that sometimes 



THE DEPARTURE.— -THE SEARCH. 519 

grew into warm debates, but ended in brotherly good- 
will. 

The visitors at Desor's this summer made an album as 
a memorial of Parker and Kiichler, each savan contribut- 
ing a paper. Parker's piece was a satire on the scientific 
method of the Bridgewater Treatises, very clever, — "A 
Bumblebee's View of the Universe." Of course he found 
time to write letters, and long ones. The best of them — 
and very good they are — may be read in Weiss. They 
show how affectionately he bore his friends in mind ; how 
closely he kept the run of home-affairs, public and pri- 
vate ; and how much deeper was his concern for great 
principles in America than for his own health in Europe. 
"I am only one little spurt of water running into the 
great ocean of humanity ; and,. if I stop here, I shall not 
be at all missed there." 

Six weeks were passed in this mountain-retreat, — six 
weeks which Mr. Parker spoke of as among the most 
delightful of his sojourn in Europe. On the afternoon 
of Aug. 22 he left the chalet, descended the mountains, 
and kept his birthday (the 24th) at Montreux. He 
has now an excellent appetite ; his spirits never fail ; he 
coughs less, and feels stronger. He carried more than 
seventy pounds of baggage from the boat to the cars, at 
Yverdon, without strain. As the autumn advances, he is 
still improving. On one of his walks in the neighborhood 
of Montreux, as he is pushing along, eating grapes, a 
cheery voice calls out, " Can you tell me the way to Bos- 
ton meetin'-house ? " He turns, and meets the jocund 
face of J. T. Fields the publisher, who was walking over 
from Vevay to see him. He steadily gains in weight ; 
reaches, in fact, a hundred and fifty-eight and a third 
pounds, — more than he had weighed for twenty-nine years. 

Autumn draws on fast. Desor has come down from 
his mountain-perch to his residence in Neufchatel, and 
bids his friend to make him a parting-visit there in the 






520 THEODORE PARKER. 

vintage-time. The scientific men have returned to their 
duties in the cities. It is time to think of winter-quar- 
ters; to bid good-by to the Dent du Midi, the hills, 
the lake, the lovely meadows, and find a shelter elsewhere 
from the cold and wind. After much deliberation, study 
of climates, forecasting of probabilities, Rome- is decided 
on finally. The party of pilgrims break up their pleasant 
•quarters at Montreux on the 12th of October, and set their 
faces toward Marseilles by way of Geneva and Lyons. 
Marseilles is left on the 17th: on the 19th the sombre 
city lets him in. Again, lines written in other years come 
to mind: — 

" For all the trials of my earlier day, 
I thank thee,. Father, that they all have been ; 
That darkness lay about the rugged way 
Which I must tread alone. For all I've seen 
Of disappointment, sorrow, pain, and loss, 
I thank thee for them all. And did I sin, 
I grieve not I've been tried ; for e'en the cross 
Of penitence has taught me how to win. 
Yet, of the ills as child or man I've borne, — 
My hopes laid waste, or friends sent off by death, — 
Remorse has most of all my bosom torn 
For time misspent, ill deeds, or evil breath. 
But yet, for every grief my heart has worn, 

Father, I thank thee, still trusting with hearty faith." 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 



Pleasant lodgings were found in the Via delle Quatro 
Fontane, No. 16, on the fourth floor, a hundred and 
twenty steps from the street ; the stairs rising in four 
flights of thirty steps each. There were four rooms, 
fourteen or fifteen feet high, well furnished " for Italy," 
comfortably carpeted, with large windows to the east and 
south, giving plentiful air and sunshine, when there was 
any, all day. Dinner was sent in from a German eating- 
house. The house stood high, in an airy, dry part of the 
city. From its upper stories it commanded a view of the 
whole city: below, a magnificent prospect stretched out 
in every direction. Close by was the Quirinal Palace, 
its gardens lying between : on the other side was the 
Pincian Hill, with its fine trees and shrubbery. St. Peter's 
was in full view from base to dome, standing out against 
the dark background of the Etruscan Hills. The Palazzo 
Barberini, where William Story the sculptor lived, was 
hard by. Nothing could promise better. The Apthorps 
and Hunts occupied the third floor of the same building, 
ready at all times with social cheer, and, in case of an 
emergency, with every thing that lay within reach of hu- 
man power. Daily existence was laid out on a simple 
plan, which the weather alone deranged. The needs of 
the invalid were the care of all : unhappily, the invalid 
could not, with the very best intentions, care for himself. 
44* 521 



522 THEODORE PARKER. 

The same irritability of brain that made rest impossible 
in the West Indies made it equally — if it could be, more 
— impossible in Rome. Before he had got into his apart- 
ments, before he had been two days in the city, prowling 
about, he came across, in a stall, a Dutch book on the Ex- 
istence of God, — a book he had never before been able to 
find, — and bought it for half a dollar. In the course of a 
week, he had begun work enough to employ a well man's 
days; being nothing less than the study of Rome, — its 
geology, its flora and fauna, its archaeology, its architect- 
ure. He carries his Mommsen with him in his mind as 
he visits daily some of the places famous in legend or 
history. A vast amount of reading of no light kind is 
done. His shelves are filled with a long range of learned 
works, in different languages, on Rome and Italy. All 
the newspapers he can get are on his table. He keeps 
the run of political events in Europe and America, follow- 
ing minutely the course of affairs in Church and State, so 
that he could talk with statesmen about them. His cor- 
respondence is unintermitted. Ponderous letters, big as 
pamphlets, come from his restless pen, which, debarred 
from writing lectures and sermons, puts the same amount 
of material into epistolary form. His letters are disser- 
tations, crammed with facts and reflections. Scarcely a 
note escapes from him that has not passages which only a 
scholar and thinker could have written. To one friend he 
writes a summary of the epochs in the history of Rome 
itself ; to another, an account of agriculture in the Papal 
States \ to another he gives an outside and inside view of 
ecclesiastical institutions there ; to yet others, interested 
in such matters, descriptions of domestic economy, 
humorous sketches of popular manners, statistics of pop- 
ulation or trade, comparative tables illustrating the 
numerical strength or the social condition of various 
classes of the people ; all done methodically and with 
conscience. His brain is singularly alive ; his observ- 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 523 

ing power keen and swift. Nothing escapes him in the 
street. Passing a book-shop, his eye takes in the title of 
every volume displayed in the window j going by a fruit- 
stall, he notices every unfamiliar nut or berry or plant, and 
will not pass on till he has learned all about it. His 
memory does not fail him : his reasoning faculty is ever 
on the alert. At Mrs. Browning's a pamphlet is men- 
tioned, — "Le Pape et le Congres," by M. Guerronniere. 
Mrs. Browning has not seen it, only heard of its general 
character. Nobody, apparently, knows it but Mr. Parker, 
who had seen a translation of it in "The London Times." 
He takes up the book at once j gives a full account of it, — 
its fundamental positions, its argument, its bearing, — and 
dilates on its tendency and probable effect in different 
quarters ; his hearers listening with more than interest to 
the development of ideas as they flow from the eloquent 
speaker's lips. On another occasion he was breakfast- 
ing with William Story in company with Mr. and Mrs. 
Apthorp, Mr. and Mrs. Twisselton, Mrs. Stowe, Haw- 
thorne, Bryant, Gibson, and Browning. The conversation 
turned on malarious soils. Mr. Parker, who, up to that 
point, had said little (the act of talking being painful to 
him), struck in here ; gave an account of malarious regions, 
their peculiarities, their formation, their influence, and the 
precautions to be observed in guarding against their 
poison. " No miasma," he said, " could penetrate through 
fifteen feet of pure gravel." The old residents in Rome, 
who might be presumed familiar with the subject, were 
the most interested and the most astonished at the unex- 
pected wealth of information, and freely expressed their 
amazement as they left the table ; Mr. Browning remark- 
ing to Mrs. Apthorp, " What a wonderful man ! None of 
us knew the facts he told us." In this instance the sub- 
ject was one to which Mr. Parker, from the* circum- 
stances of his birthplace, the hereditary disease in his 
family, and the fact of his own illness, had given par- 



524 THEODORE PARKER. 

ticular attention. But the marvel of his information was 
as great in departments which would seem to lie remote 
from any interest or study of his. Thus, being in a com- 
pany with ladies, one of whom had a trimming of beau- 
tiful lace on a portion of her dress, and question arising 
in regard to its manufacture, Mr. Parker was alone able 
to answer ; having, it would appear to a stranger, freshly 
informed himself on the whole subject of lace-making. 
Omniscience was his forte : during these last six months 
in Rome it was his weakness. Every thing about him, 
the wonderful city, the singular aspect of all things, the 
strange modes of life, the restlessness attendant on his 
disease, the effort to forget himself, all conspired to 
sharpen every mental faculty to the utmost. All actions, 
even the wisest, were overdone. 

He had been advised to pass as much time as he could 
in the open air. He seemed bent on spending all the 
daytime there. The bad weather seldom kept him in. 
In the early autumn (October) he walked six or seven 
hours a day, though he had lost eight pounds since Combe 
Varin. He explores the ancient city on foot, searching 
about in the squares and gardens for the localities of 
famous deeds, identifying temples and palaces in the 
Forum, mousing round in the quarter on the other side of 
the Tiber, examining the gates and walls, searching after 
the remains of theatres ; the inseparable umbrella in his 
hand, often over his head. He does not know how or 
where to stop, a preternatural power of endurance holding 
him up, and pushing him on. In the middle of January, 
i860, when he has lost ten or twelve pounds of flesh, 
looks paler and thinner in the face, weaker in the eyes, 
and is more nervous and desponding, the power of walk- 
ing does not abate. In April, but little more than a 
month before the end came, he rides on a donkey to 
Frascati and to Tusculum two miles beyond, among the 
mountains, — in all, some twelve miles distant from Rome ; 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 525 

and every day he must descend and ascend those hundred 
and twenty steps. 

He cannot keep out of churches. The pomps attract, 
while they disgust him ; the antiquities attract. The old 
churches of Sts. Cosmo and Damien (supposed to be built 
on ancient sites), the temples of, Janus and Ceres, the 
mausoleum of Augustus, draw him as an archaeologist. 
The Santa Maria Maggiore, the Ara Coeli, the San Lo- 
renzo without the walls, San Carlo, and many another, 
were, of course, intensely interesting ; but they were hardly 
places which a physician would recommend a consumptive 
invalid to frequent in ugly weather. He confesses that he 
catches bad colds, artd coughs shockingly, now and then 
raising blood \ but he cannot desist. The places are either 
curious or amusing : in either case he is taken out of him- 
self ; entertained for the hour, if for no longer. In what 
different spirit, with what different purposes, he went over 
all that ground fifteen years before, taking in stores of 
thought that were to serve and cheer him in many future 
years ! now killing weary days, and trying to calm a rest- 
less mind which had no more work to do on earth, but 
wished to get from earth such peace as it could before the 
great future opened. 

Friendship did all for him that friendship could. A 
devoted care, patient and sweet, was always with him. 
Dearer hearts than those under the same roof with him 
there were not in the world. There was the smallest pos- 
sible friction of temper. The kindest of companions 
attended him in his walks. The affectionate though tful- 
ness of the Storys and Brownings was gratefully acknowl- 
edged. Miss Charlotte Cushman did all a good heart 
prompted to cheer the tiresome days. Dr. Frothingham 
of Boston, who was spending the winter in Rome with his 
family, came in and chatted about poetry, the theatre, 
people. Mr. and Mrs. C. T. Thayer toiled dutifully up 
the hundred and twenty steps to comfort the sick man. 



526 THEODORE PARKER. 

Artists he saw now and then, — William Page, Harriet 
Hosmer. Story entertained him with various learning and 
wit, and kept him employed in his studio while making 
his bust. But society was tantalizing, at times exasperat- 
ing ; for the invalid could not talk without pain, and to 
listen without responding did not calm his mind. He 
avoided social occasions, even of the most attractive sort. 
" I sit at all entertainments," he says, " like the coffin in 
the Egyptian feasts." 

The climate of Rome, this winter, was cruel to the sick 
who sought its hospitality, — wet, cold, windy, disagreeable. 
The summer had been dry and cold. The rainy season 
set in early, and continued late. ' It rained when he 
arrived ; it rained for two or three weeks afterward. " For 
nine or ten weeks, it beat any thing I ever knew in New 
England for badness;" "Cloudy and foggy j" "Chilly 
and cold : " these are the records in the journal. " A most 
fitful climate. I have been here near four months, and 
have seen no particle of dust till yesterday. It has rained 
almost all the time > yet out of the one hundred and 
twenty days there have been but eight when I have not 
walked out an hour or two." " Rome is the dampest city I 
was ever in. The walls and roofs are green and yellow 
with fuci and lichens of various kinds. The Tramontana 
wind is cold and arid : that makes me cough at once." 
Invalids, or people who had been invalid, cheered him by 
telling what Rome had done for them ; but its kindly 
offices are not for him. He writes to Miss Cobbe, " Rome 
has not used me well this winter, and I shall leave it with 
but one regret ; viz., that I came here at all. I have, lost 
three pounds a month since I left Switzerland, and have 
gained nothing but a great cough." 

The city, too, was more than usually gloomy. There 
were fewer strangers there ; and consequently there was 
less industry, more complaint, more beggary. " Rome is 
an ugly old place. The past is all : there is no present but 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 527 

misery, and no future but decay and destruction. It is a 
fossil city, utterly foreign to me and mine. I abhor its 
form of religion, which is only ceremony: I despise its 
theology, and find little to respect in its lying, treacherous, 
and unreliable inhabitants. It is a city of the dead. It 
has a threefold past, but no future." The finest of ruins 
are not cheering to a man who feels his steps tending 
towards decay. 

The memory of the brave young America, where his 
heart was, deepened the gloom of the old city, and made 
existence there at times almost unbearable. Through let- 
ters and newspapers he was informed of all that went on 
there in the world of religion, politics, society : the petty 
sectarian quarrels, the pettier sectarian manoeuvres, were 
all reported to him. With beating heart he followed the 
fortunes of the deepening fight between liberty and slave- 
ry, noting the names of those that battled well and of 
those that faltered, measuring forces, balancing proba- 
bilities, forecasting issues, cheering the combatants, and 
aching with agony because he could not be where the strife 
was hottest. The heroic venture of his friend John 
Brown was made while he was on his way from Switzer- 
land to Italy. Every step of that great exploit he traced 
with eager emotion, bore in mind tenderly the day of exe- 
cution, and listened breathlessly for the echoes that came 
from the hills of the North. Every brave word spoken 
reached his ear; every responsive act done by roused 
leaders or indignant people, every movement prophetic of 
popular uprising, made the blood fly in his veins. It is 
anguish to be idle and useless when soldiers are needed 
as never before. He would share the fate of his friends, — 
Sumner, Wilson, Hale, Seward, Gerritt Smith, Stearns, 
Howe, the faithful few who dared stand up for principle. 
" O George ! " he cries to his friend Ripley, " the life I 
am here slowly dragging to an end, tortuous but painless, 
is very, very imperfect, and fails of much I meant to hit, 



528 THEODORE PARKER. 

and might have reached, nay, should, had there been ten 
or twenty years more left for me. But, on the whole, it has 
not been a mean life, measured by the common run of men ; 
never a selfish one. Above all things else, I have sought 
to teach the true idea of man, of God, of religion, with 
its truths, its duties, and its joys. I never fought for my- 
self, nor against a private foe, but have gone into the 
battle of the nineteenth century, and followed the flag of 
humanity. Now I am ready to die, though conscious that 
I leave half my work undone ; and much grain lies in my 
fields, waiting only for Him that gathereth sheaves. I 
would rather lay my bones with my fathers and mothers 
at Lexington, and think I may ; but will not complain if 
earth or sea shall cover them up elsewhere." 

To all who had been true to him his feeling was ex- 
ceedingly tender. He had finished a long letter to his 
old friend Charles Ellis, when the news came of his death. 
Immediately a touching letter goes to his widow : " He 
was one of my oldest friends, one of the faithfullest, one 
of the nearest and dearest. His friendship never failed ; 
and I never asked him in vain to help another. Let us 
not complain. Tenderly loved by those who knew him 
best, widely respected by many whom he worked with in 
the various duties of the day, at a . considerable age he 
has gone home. He has shaken off a worn-out and 
broken body continually racked with torturing pains, 
and risen up a free and unfettered spirit. I think it for- 
tunate for him, for you, for us all, that he was spared that 
long agony which wearies out the day of many, and 
makes the road to the grave so rough and difficult. Not 
long ago, poor Katie went before him, lamenting that *she 
must go alone. Now he is with her. Nay, she went to 
make ready a place in heaven for her father, who so ten- 
derly prepared a place for her on earth." The wife of 
another of his well -beloved parishioners, Mrs. George 
Jackson, passed away ; and another message of love and 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 529 

faith flew from his pen : " Who would not wish for so 
smooth a sail out of this little sea, and into the great wide 
haven we are all bound to ? Most men dread dying, but 
not death. I can't think our present deaths natural, or to 
continue always. If something were not wrong in our 
mode of life, we should all glide gently out of the world ; 
but we must bear the misfortunes that others entail on us. 
If it were fate, it could not be borne ; but when we look 
on it as providence, the work of an infinite Father and 
Mother, who looks eternally before, and eternally looks 
after, and rules all things from love as motive, and for 
blessedness as end, we can take almost any thing with a 
smile." 

His faith in the eternal present and the immortal future 
never fainted. He felt that the sky was always blue above 
the clouds : if the star rose in mist, it cleared itself as it 
ascended. As the mortal disease gained on him, — as it 
did, and as he better than anybody knew that it did, for 
he observed and noted each physical change, — the strug- 
gle of nature against dissolution was carried on in every 
department of his frame. That vigorous organization was 
not soon reconciled to death. Compactly knitted and 
sturdily built as if to last a century, it could not consent 
to break up. It had to be taken to pieces slowly, each . 
part separately detached ; and the process made the very 
seat of the soul tremble. The finest nerves were wrung. 
The sweetest bells became jangled and out of tune. The 
mechanism of hope and faith and trust was occasionally 
disordered, and responded faintly to the bidding of the will. 
The column was moved on which the telescope rested that 
used to pick out the tiniest stars in the night heavens, and 
the fields of light were blurred. The sick man had the 
sick man's fancies, — was restless and self-tormenting; 
wanted what he could not have ; was capricious about 
meat and drink and medicine; had the usual unaccount- 
able likes and dislikes. His case being desperate, he 
45 



530 THEODORE PARKER. 

would clutch at straws, and try experiments with himself, 
which varied from day to day ; refused all regular treat- 
ment. He was never a good subject for nurse or physi- 
cian : he knew too much ; was too self-dependent ; call it, 
if you please, too self-willed. He was subject to extreme 
physical depression from excessive weakness. At such 
times, waves of sorrow would roll over the helpless soul. 
The accumulated weight of former years, which he had 
kept back by main force before, now crowded in with 
irresistible power: then, his faith and trust asserting 
themselves as the billows receded for a moment, his 
spirit rose with a bound into regions of joyous antici- 
pation, where sorrow seemed impossible, and labor light. 
Even an apostle felt the strait a close one between living 
and dying, when, though dying was gain, living was Christ. 
We will say no more about it. It was nobody's fault 
that the long, trying sickness was distressing: it had 
to be. " Death seemed unnatural with such a creature. 
The loving ones who ministered to him knew it, and 
tenderly forgot what they saw it would grieve him 
bitterly to have them remember. For them to forget 
was easy ; for pitying affection was uppermost in their 
hearts, and gratitude was uppermost in his. Indeed, he 
compelled them to forget by the astonishing vigor of 
his mind. ' Only three weeks before he died, as he lay 
one day in Rome, with one eye closed from feebleness, 
the whole man apparently in the last stage of pros- 
tration, a friend who had been absent in Florence for two 
weeks came in. " What news ? " inquired the patient. The 
visitor took from her pocket two or three unpublished 
translations, by Owen Meredith, from the Romance 
dialect. " Read them to me." As she read, the wan 
countenance regained its animation ; speech returned. 
He took the papers from her hand, read them himself aloud, 
explained the obscure lines as he went on, and ended by 
giving a history of the dialect, and an account of the 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 531 

sources whence the poems were taken, as if that kind of 
literature had been the study of his life. 

As the weeks wore on, and spring came again, hope 
seemed to revive. He talked of travel. He would go to 
Naples and see Vesuvius, perhaps to Paestum, afterwards 
to Siena, Pisa, Florence, Milan, Venice, thence to Vienna, 
so into Germany, and round into Switzerland. Of ulti- 
mate recovery he had no hope \ none of substantial im- 
provement : but he thought he might reach home and die. 
His longing was for his friend Desor : " Let us see you 
here soon ; for you are the medicine I ueed most of all, 
and may do me just the good thing I need to set me on 
my legs again." At length Desor came, but too late. 
The sight of him gave strength for a moment ; but his 
society was exhausting. Still, as this note — the last he 
ever finished, to Miss Stevenson in Florence — bears wit- 
ness, his courage did not fail. Perhaps the thought of 
leaving Rome stirred the embers of hope in him. 

Rome, Sunday (Quasimodo), April 15, i860. 

Poo ole Lad ye, — It is fine weather to-day ; and, before 
Dr. A. and Desor come here, I will try and write you a little 
letter. Yesterday was dreadful weather, and I did not go out of 
doors. I think I have been mending ever since Desor came. 
But it is too much for him to dine here every day : so he lodges 
and dines mainly at his hotel ; and we drive together ; and he 
stays an hour or two or more, and talks to me. I sleep tolera- 
bly well, and do not complain. The sore throat seems to be im- 
proving. 

Wife is as cheerful and happy as you could look for with all 
her anxieties ; the best and tenderest of nurses ; not at all fussy. 
She lies down on the sofa after dinner, and sleeps an hour or 
so : this both helps her to sleep in the night all the better, and, 
what is more, to keep cheerful and active in the day. It is 
what she always needed, but would not take. 

Cabot thinks it better for me to come home about Sept. 1 ; 
and Desor proposes nice little plans for the summer, — partly of 
travel, partly of residence at Combe Varin. But all this must 



532 THEODORE PARKER. 

depend on a contingency which I cannot control : therefore I 
leave all undecided. 

We shall travel north with the spring ; keeping in warm 
weather till we come into Switzerland. Next Saturday, Apple- 
tons and all of us hope to start in a vettura for Florence, via 
Perugia. It will, take us about six days ; and, if you will ask 
Mrs. M. to take us into two rooms then, you will confer a new 
favor, especially if we get in. / can V go up high ': the hun- 
dred and twenty steps have been almost fatal to me ; and I 
thank God that I am to ascend them but five times more. 

This is all that will run out of my pen this morning, and 
perhaps the last I shall write you from Rome ; for I hate a pen 
now-a-davs. Good-by ! 

Boo! 

But he had changed sadly since the days of Combe 
Varin : he looked ten years older ; had become an old 
man. It was plain to everybody, soon it was plain to 
him, that all travelling was impossible, except, perhaps, 
what was necessary to take him away from the city, the 
aspect whereof had become ghastly to him, whose atmos- 
phere was mental poison. Then the desire to get away 
from Rome and its detestable climate became morbidly 
intense. He was impatient to go ; fretted under the de- 
lays caused by the weather ; insisted on departing. 
'" Should you fail on the road ; should you die in a tav- 
ern!" — "I will not die so. I will reach Florence. My 
bones shall not rest in this detested soil. I will go to 
Florence ; and I will get* there, I promise you." 

The sad procession set off by vetturino, by way of Peru- 
gia. The journey was made to last five days, — about 
thirty miles a day ; the patient resting as much as he could, 
attempting no excursions, but inquisitive in regard to all 
the others saw. " Tell me," he said, " when we pass the 
frontier and leave the Papal States behind. If I am asleep, 
wake me to tell it" The post, newly painted red, white, 
and green, the colors of the kingdom of Italy, was passed 
in the daytime. He observed it, and roused himself as 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 533 

if electrified. His eyes burned with enthusiasm. Now, at 
least, he should die in a free land. 

Florence was reached, but hardly. The sick man was 
more than ready to accept the rest it offered. He wel- 
comed his last bed. There, day after day, he lay quietly, 
his back to the window, his eyelids quivering, his mind 
much of the time in a half-conscious state, his thoughts 
wandering in pleasant places. He was on his way to 
America ; he was at home again among his dear parish- 
ioners. " Come, Bearsie, let us go and see our friends." 
Once he tried to write a note' to good John Ayres, the 
friend of many years : — 

Florence, May 3. 

My dear John Ayres, — So I shall still call you. . Will 
you come over to-morrow and see us, just after your dinner- 
time ? Bring me a last year's apple if you can, or any new 
melon. 

Yours truly, T. P. 

You get into my house not far from good Mr. Cummings's 
grocery. 

His broken talk ran upon his old days and old delights. 
Grateful messages fell from his murmuring lips : — 

j 

" Mr. Gooding's pears ! — thank him. Couldn't forget the 
autumn pears ! " 

" Love to Aunt Mary : that is all that I can send her." . 

" Tell the Miss Thayers I would like to see them ; that I 
went away in February, 1859, an d came back in July, i860. I 



He was in his house, his library. One day he declared 
that all was confusion there 3 and it was : the careful 
housekeeper was sweeping it at the moment, unconscious 
that the master's exorbitant sensibility was restlessly mov- 
ing about the room, disturbed by her dust. When the 
fever-fits were on him, he would rouse himself as if to pre- 
45* 



534 THEODORE PARKER. 

pare for a journey. " When is that vessel going ? • Will it 
not go soon ? " In clearer moments he would be aware of 
his condition, and bid affectionate adieus to those about 
him ; then, rallying, would talk his old child's talk with his 
wife and Miss Stevenson, his wasted appearance contrast- 
ing singularly with the fresh welling-over of his emotion. 
In these last days he was never petulant or exacting. His 
gentlest- consideration returned to him : he asked humbly 
for service, and gratefully thanked those who gave it. 

Miss Frances Power Cobbe — one of the truest of his 
spiritual friends, in whose books he had interested himself 
when in Boston, with whom he had corresponded, whom 
he hoped to see in London, but had never met — was in 
Florence, and impatient to see him. Collecting himself 
by a great effort, the sick man received her tenderly at his 
bedside. " It is strange that we should meet thus at last. 
But you do not see me; only the memory of me. They 
who wish me well wish me a speedy departure to the other 
world. Of course, I am not afraid to die ; but there is 
so much to do ! " — " But you have done much. You have 
given your life to God, to his truth and his work, as truly 
as any old martyr of them all." — "I don't know," was the 
reply. " I had great powers committed to me : I have 
but half used them." She gave him flowers, — tea-roses, 
some lilies of the valley. The gentle touch of nature 
woke the soul of nature in him. A heavenly smile suffused 
his face, which made his visitor wonder how any should 
have thought him homely. His spirit roused, he talked 
with animation of the flowers of America, then of literature, 
— the literature of Italy. The veil was lifted ; and Miss 
Cobbe had a glimpse of the man as he was in his prime. 
" Do not speak of your feeling for me," he said : " it 
makes me too unhappy to leave you." He wanted to see 
her every day, but could not : the pleasure was too excit- 
ing. When he did, the gleams of light came at intervals 
across a dreamy waste of mind. The lilies caused a glad- 



THE ETERNAL CITY. 535 

ness that soon faded. " What day is it ? " — " Sunday, a 
blessed day." — " It is a blessed day when one has got over 
the superstition of it." " I want to tell you something," he 
said earnestly at one of these interviews. "There are 
two Theodore Parkers now : one is dying here in Italy ; the 
other I have planted in America. He will live there, and 
finish my work." Weeks before this there were moments, 
moments in almost every day, when the shattered mental 
system responded to no supreme effort at control. The 
mainspring of the mechanism was fatally weakened ; the 
golden bowl was broken ; the silver cord was loosed. Once, 
in Rome, his wife having left the room, he put a paper 
into a friend's hand. .It contained directions for his 
funeral in the Music Hall. Rome and Boston were min- 
gled confusedly in his mind. "It is all one," he said. 
" Phillips and Clarke will come for my sake." Notions of 
time and space were blurred ; but the noble heart was true 
to its instincts. If his mind wandered, it was in heavenly 
fields. He would save his wife from the bitterness of his 
thought. He did his friends the justice to think their love 
as all-victorious as his own. 

At last the curtain fell : a gradual weakness, without 
pain or distress, pressed down the prostrate frame. Men- 
tal action ceased : a soft mist crept over the faculties : 
physical sensibility became less and less. On the 10th of 
May he fell asleep, so softly, that the most anxious watch- 
ers knew not that the last breath had been drawn. The 
slumber of a little child was in his case more than a meta- 
phor. The great soul had gone, and a simplicity as of 
infancy rested on the deserted face. 

Three days later, on a Sunday afternoon, the body was 
taken to the little Protestant cemetery just outside the city, 
by the Pinti Gate. It was a feast-day in the city. The 
body was taken to its resting-place through streets that 
were lined with banners, and rang with rejoicing. In the 
narrow graveyard, blooming with verdure, it was buried. 



536 THEODORE PARKER. 

The reading of the Beatitudes, and the solemn thoughts 
of the mourners, made all the service. It was enough. 
Over few graves could those immortal words be more fitly 
spoken. A plain slab of gray marble, with the simplest of 
inscriptions, has told many of his country men and women 
where to leave their sweetest . flowers and their tenderest 
tears'. His own words best express the spirit in which he 
met his end : — 

" Yes, holy one, thou the good Shepherd art, 
Enduring hardest service for thy sheep, 
Hearing their bleatings with a human heart, 
Not losing such as thou wert put to keep ; 
But feeble wanderers from the field astray 
Thou on thy shoulders takest, and dost bear 
From hireling thieves and murdering wolves away, 
And watchest o'er them with a guardian care. 
Thou art the human Shepherd of the sheep, 
Leading them forth to pasture all the day ; 
At night to folds which them in safety keep. 
Thou light and life from God, to heaven the way, 

And giving, at the last, thy own, thy well-beloved, sleep." 



CHAPTER XX. 



TRIBUTES. 



The tidings of Theodore Parker's death caused a pro- 
found sensation in the places that had known him. At 
the annual festival of the Unitarian Association, on Anni- 
versary Week, it was alluded to with feeling by men who 
had disagreed with the preacher and reformer, but who 
sincerely respected the man. At the session of the New- 
England Antislavery Society, on Thursday, May 31, reso- 
lutions of eulogy were offered by Wendell Phillips, which 
the president of the society, John T. Sargent, seconded 
in a few appreciative words, and which Theodore's loving 
and beloved friend, Samuel J. May, followed with a tribute 
out of a full heart. I shall not copy at length the ad- 
dresses that were made here or elsewhere ; but a few ex- 
tracts will be proper, as showing the impression that Mr. 
Parker left on the strongest minds. The language is, of 
course, language of eulogium ; but it fell from sincere lips, 
that were not in the habit of speaking idle praise of any, 
holding truth ever more precious than tenderness to living 
or to dead. 

After some words of introduction, Mr. Phillips said, — 

"When some Americans die, when most Americans die, 
their friends tire the public with excuses. They confess this 
spot ; they explain that stain ; they plead circumstances as the 
half justification of that mistake ; and they beg of us to remem- 
ber that nothing but good is to be spoken of the dead. We 

537 



538 THEODORE PARKER. 

need no such mantle for that green grave under the sky of 
Florence ; no excuses, no explanations, no spot. Priestly mal- 
ice has scanned every inch of his garment : it was seamless ; 
it could find no stain. History, as in the case of every other of 
her beloved children, gathers into her bosom the arrows which 
malice had shot at him, and says to posterity, 'Behold the 
title-deeds of your gratitude ! ' We ask no moment to ex- 
cuse : there is nothing to explain. What the snarling journal 
thought bold, what the selfish politician feared as his ruin, it 
was God's seal set upon his apostleship. The little libel glanced 
across him like a rocket when it goes over the vault : it is 
passed, and the royal sun shines out as beneficent as ever. 

" When I returned from New York on the thirteenth day of 
this month, I was to have been honored by standing in his 
desk ; but illness prevented my fulfilling the appointment. It 
was eleven o'clock in the morning. As he sank away the same 
week under the fair sky of Italy, he said to the most loving of 
wives and of nurses, ' Let me be buried where I fall ; ' and 
tenderly, thoughtfully, she selected four o'clock of the same 
Sunday to mingle his dust with the kindred dust of brave, 
classic Italy. 

" Four o'clock ! The same sun that looked upon the half- 
dozen mourners that he permitted to follow him to the grave, 
that same moment of brightness, lighted up the arches of his 
own temple as one whom he loved stepped into his own desk, 
and with remarkable coincidence, for the only time during his 
absence, opened one of his own sermons to supply my place ; 
and, as his friend read the Beatitudes over his grave on the 
banks of the Arno, his dearer friend here read from a manu- 
script the text, ' Have faith in God.' It is said that in his last 
hours, in the wandering of that masterly brain, he murmured, 
y There are two Theodore Parkers : one rests here, dying ; but 
the other lives, and is at work at home.' How true ! At that 
very moment he was speaking to his usual thousands ; at that 
very instant his own words were sinking down into the hearts 
of those that loved him best, and bidding them, in this the lone- 
liest hours of their bereavement, ' have faith in God.' 

" He always came to this platform : he is an old occupant of 
it. He never made an apology for coming to it. I remember, 
many years ago, going home from the very hall which formerly 



TRIBUTES. 539 

occupied this place. He had sat where you sit, in the seats, 
looking up at us. It had been a stormy, hard gathering, a 
close fight : the press calumniating us ; every journal in Boston 
ridiculing the idea which we were endeavoring to spread. As I 
passed down the stairs homeward, he put his arm within mine, 
and said, ' You shall never need to ask me again to share that 
platform.' It was the instinct of his nature, true as the bravest 
heart. The spot for him was where the battle was hottest. He 
had come, as half the clergy come, a critic. He felt it was 
not his place ; that it was to grapple with the tiger, and throttle 
him. And the pledge that he made he kept ; for whether here 
or in New York, as his reputation grew, when that lordly mam- 
moth of the press, ' The Tribune,' overgrown in its independ- 
ence and strength, would not condescend to record a word that 
Mr. Garrison or I could utter, but bent low before the most 
thorough scholarship of New England, and was glad to win its 
way to the confidence of the West by being his mouthpiece, — 
with that weapon of influence in his right hand, he. always 
placed himself at our side, and in the midst of us, in the capital 
State of the empire. 

" You may not think this great praise : we do. Other men 
have brought us brave hearts ; other men have brought us keen- 
sighted and vigilant intellects : but he brought us, as no one 
else could, the loftiest stature of New-England culture. He 
brought us a disciplined intellect, whose statement was evidence, 
and whose affirmation the most gifted student took long time 
before he ventured to doubt or to contradict. When we had 
nothing but our characters, nothing but our reputation for accu- 
racy, for our weapons, the man who could give to the cause of 
the slave that weapon was indeed one of its ablest and foremost 
champions. 

" Lord Bacon said in his will, ' I leave my name and memory 
to foreign lands, and to my own countrymen after some time be 
passed? No more fitting words could be chosen, if the modesty 
of the friend who has just gone before us would have permitted 
him to adopt them for himself. To-day, even within twenty- 
four hours, I have seen symptoms of that repentance which 
Johnson describes : — 

' When nations, slowly wise and meanly just, 
To buried merit raise the tardy bust.' 



540 THEODORE PARKER. 

" The men who held their garments aside, and desired to 
have no contact with Music Hall, are beginning to show symp- 
toms that they will be glad, when the world doubts whether they 
have any life left, to say, ' Did not Theodore Parker spring 
from our bosom ? ' Yes, he takes* his place, his serene place, 
among those few to whom Americans point as a proof that the 
national heart is still healthy and alive. Most of our statesmen, 
most of our politicians, go down into their graves, and we cover 
them up with apologies : we walk with reverent and filial love 
backward, and throw the mantle over their defects, and say, 
' Remember the temptation and the time ! ' Now and then 
one, now and then one, goes up silently, and yet not unan- 
nounced, like the stars at their coming, and takes his place ; 
while all eyes follow him, and say, 'Thank God! It is the 
promise and the herald : it is the nation alive at its heart. God 
has not left us without a witness ; for his children have been 
among us, and one-half have known them by love, and one-half 
have known them by hate, — equal attestations to the divine life 
that has passed through our streets.' " 

Mr. Garrison spoke with little premeditation, but in 
substance thus : He referred to the mental independence 
and moral courage which characterized Mr. Parker in re- 
spect to all his convictions and acts. He was not tech- 
nically " a Garrisonian abolitionist," though often upon 
that platform, but voted with the Republican party, though 
faithfully rebuking it for its timidity and growing spirit of 
compromise. He was no man's man, and no man's fol- 
lower, but acted for himself, bravely, conscientiously, and 
according to his best judgment. 

But what of his theology ? Mr. Garrison did not know 
that he could state the whole of Mr. Parker's creed \ but 
he remembered a part of it : " There is one God and 
Father over all, absolute and immutable, whose love is 
infinite, and therefore inexhaustible, and whose tender 
mercies are over all the works of his hand ; and, whether 
in the body or out of the body, the farthest wanderer from 
the fold might yet have hope." He believed in the con- 



TRIBUTES. 541 

tinual progress and final redemption of the human race ; 
that every child of God, however erring, would ultimately 
be brought back. " You may quarrel with that theology," 
said Mr. Garrison, "if you please : I shall not. I like it ; 
I have great faith in it j I accept it. But this I say in 
respect to mere abstract theological opinions, — the longer 
I live, the less do I care about them, the less do I make 
them a test of character. It is nothing to me that any 
man calls himself a Methodist, or Baptist, or Unitarian, 
or Universalist. These sectarian shibboleths are easily 
taken upon the lip, especially when the ' offence of the 
cross ' has ceased. Whoever will, with his theology, grind 
out the best grist for our common humanity, is the best 
theologian for me. 

"Many years ago, Thomas Jefferson uttered a senti- 
ment which shocked our eminently Christian country as 
being thoroughly infidel. ' I do not care,' said he, 
1 whether my neighbor believes in one God or in twenty 
gods, if he does not pick my pocket \ ' thus going to 
the root of absolute justice and morality, and obviously 
meaning this : If a man pick my pocket, it is in vain he 
tells me, in palliation of his crime, ' I am a believer in 
one true and living God.' — * That may be ; but you are a 
pickpocket nevertheless.' Or he may say, ' I have not 
only one God, but twenty gods : therefore I am not 
guilty.' — ' Nay, but you are a thief ! ' And so we always 
throw ourselves back upon character ; upon the fact 
whether a man is honest, just, long-suffering, merciful ; 
and not whether he believes in a denominational creed, or 
is a strict observer of rites and ceremonies. ' This was the 
religion of Theodore Parker, always exciting his marvel- 
lous powers to promote the common good, to bless those 
who needed a blessing, and to seek and to save the lost, 
to bear testimony in favor of the right in the face of an 
ungodly age, and against ' a frowning world.' " 

Mr. Garrison said they were there to honor his memory. 
46 



542 THEODORE PARKER. 

How could they best show their estimation of him ? By 
trying to be like him in nobility of soul, in moral heroism, 
in fidelity to the truth, in disinterested regard for the wel- 
fare of others. 

" Mr. Parker, though strong in his convictions, was no 
dogmatist, and assumed no robes of infallibility. No man 
was more docile in regard to being taught, even by the 
lowliest. Mr. Phillips had done him no more than justice 
when he said that he was willing and eager to obtair in- 
struction from any quarter. Hence he was always inquir- 
ing of those with whom he came in contact, so that he 
might learn, if possible, something from them that might 
aid him in the great work in which he was engaged. 

"When the question of woman's rights first came up 
for discussion, like multitudes of others, Mr. Parker was 
inclined to treat it facetiously, and supposed .it could be 
put aside with a smile. Still it was his disposition to hear 
and to learn ; and as soon as he began to investigate, and 
to see the grandeur and world-wide importance of the 
woman's-rights movement, he gave to it his hearty sup- 
port before the country and the world. 

" How he will be missed by those noble but unfortunate 
exiles who come to Boston from the Old World from time 
to time, driven out by the edicts of European despotism ! 
What a home was Theodore Parker's for them ! How 
they loved to gather round him in that home ! and what a 
sympathizing friend, and trusty adviser, and generous 
assistant, in their times of sore distress, they have found in 
him ! There are many such in Boston and in various parts 
of our country, who have fled from foreign oppression, who 
will hear of his death with great sorrow of heart, and 
drop grateful tears to his memory." 

Next came James Freeman Clarke, most loyal and 
generous of friends, whose theological differences left no 
trace on his moral or personal affection : — 



TRIBUTES. 543 

" I remember meeting him on the cars on that fatal winter 
which laid the foundation of the disease which took him away. 
He had a carpet-bag with him, filled with German, Greek, and 
Latin books, — those old books in vellum of the seventeenth 
century, — volumes which it is a pain merely to look at, so hard 
reading do they seem to be. On Monday mornmg he filled his 
carpet-bag, and went to the place where he was to lecture Mon- 
day night : all day long he studied his books, and at night 
delivered his lecture. Then on Tuesday he would go to the 
next place ; studying his books all day, and lecturing at night. 
So he would go on through the week until Friday ; when he 
would be back again to Boston, with his carpet-bag exhausted, 
with every one of those books gutted of its contents, with the 
whole substance of them in his brain ; so that he knew all about 
every one of them, and could give a perfect analysis of them 
all from beginning to end. On Saturday morning he would sit 
down to write his sermon for the next day ; on Saturday after- 
noon go and visit the sick and bereaved of his society ; on 
Sunday morning preach his sermon, and in the afternoon drive 
out to Watertown and preach there ; and on Sunday evening he 
would lie on the sofa, and talk to his friends. That was his way 
of working. I got a. letter only yesterday from William H. 
Channing, an old friend of his, who, speaking in the most tender 
and affectionate terms of his departure, said that he had, by 
over-working the intellectual part of his faculties, by too great 
fidelity in study, killed out, to some extent, another masterly 
faculty, which he had observed, but of which those who did not 
know him might be ignorant ; namely, his gorgeous imagination. 
Mr. Channing said that he was a man who had, with all his logi- 
cal power, with all those reflective faculties, with all those im- 
mense powers of grasp and reception, — the powers by which 
he held on to and retained what he had learned, and the powers 
by which he brought them into one great system in order to 
set them before men, — with all this he had the imagination of a 
poet, but did not let it work, he was so busy studying all the 
time. 

" Now, there were other students along with him when 
he was a boy : and I have known a great many students ; but 
their way of studying was very different from his. When 
Parker studied, it was not merely with the concentration of cer- 



544 THEODORE PARKER. 

tain faculties, for the sake' of working out a certain problem, 
and there an end of it ; or merely to gather together certain 
things, and put them into his brain, and there an end of it. No : 
he had a great idea before him "all the time ; and his study was 
always instinct with -the life of that idea ; and every word he 
uttered was a living word ; and all the thoughts that came from 
him came from him as fresh, glowing thoughts, full of love to 
God and love to man. 

" Now with regard to the second thing which goes to make a 
man great. What was Parker's way of action ? • It was a grand 
way of action. His activity was as large, determined, persist- 
ent, complete, and thorough as his intellectual working was. 
What he did was on a plan reaching through years, on a plan 
arranged when he was a boy, — the whole of his life mapped out 
before him, with all he meant to do each year previously ar- 
ranged, and the reason for \t fixed in his own mind : and then 
he went to his work, and did it ; lived to accomplish it. But 
what sort of work was it ?' Greatness in work considers the 
quality of the work as well as the amount and method of accom- 
plishing it. What was the quality of his work ? It was simply 
this : it was to lift man toward God. That was the work which 
Parker gave himself to do in the world ; that was the work for 
which he gathered together all this knowledge ; that the work 
for which he so trained his intellect to be acute, persistent, and 
comprehensive. It was to raise men to God. With his eye on 
God, he turned to man to lift him up ; and wherever he found 
a man who needed to be raised, or a class, a race, or a nation, 
that needed to be lifted up, there he felt his work to be. On 
that point I say no more, because it is the least necessary to 
speak of his work ; since that. is patent, and known to all. 

" But there is one other element of greatness in man. Besides 
the head and the hand, there is the heart. What was the great- 
ness of heart in Theodore Parker? His habit was, in speaking 
of the Almighty, not to call him the Almighty. He spoke of 
the * Absolute Father ' in his philosophy and in his theology ; 
but when he came to speak of him from .the pulpit, as a Chris- 
tian man speaking to Christian men, as a brother talking to 
brethren and sisters of what they needed, it was ' Father ' and 
1 Mother,' — ' the great Father and Mother of us all.' The ten- 
der, feminine heart of Theodore Parker was not satisfied with 



TRIBUTES. 545 

the name of ' Father ' unless he united with it that of ' Mother.' 
So tender was he, so affectionate was he, that no one was ever 
near to Parker as a friend, as an intimate companion, without 
wondering how it was that men could ever think' of him as hard, 
stern, severe, cold, and domineering, because, in all the private 
relations of life, he was docile as a child to the touch of love ; 
and it was only necessary, if you had any fault to find with any 
thing that he had said or done, to go to him, and tell him just 
what your complaint was, or what your difficulty was, and just 
as likely as not he would at once admit, if there was the least 
reason in the complaint, that he was wrong. He was as ready 
to- admit himself in the wrong as to maintain his stand for the 
everlasting right. 

" I do not know how to describe — with what figure borrowed 
from nature or art or history to describe — how Parker seems 
to me in all this varied and accumulated greatness of mind, 
of heart, and of hand, better than by telling you the incidents of 
one day of my life. When I was passing out of Italy once by 
the St. Gothard route, we were in Italy in the morning, on the 
Italian side of the mountains, surrounded by Italian voices and 
by the music of Italian nightingales, and within sight of the 
opening vineyards. Then we began the ascent of the moun- 
tain ; and, as we ascended, we passed through the valley of pines, 
until at last, on that 15th of May, we came to the snow. Then 
we took the little sleds, and went on upon the snow, higher and 
higher, until we were surrounded with great fields of snow, daz- 
zling white in the sun ; and on one side we saw the fall of a 
terrible avalanche, with its roar of thunder. So we passed on 
until we reached the summit of the mountain ; and then, descend- 
ing on the other side, we came at last to where again the snow 
ceased ; and, there taking the diligence, we went on our way 
down the side of the mountain, through gorges and ravines, 
and glaciers even, the- country around growing more and more 
green, changing from spring to summer, until at last, when we 
came down toward the Lake of Lucerne, we passed through 
orchards full of apple-blossoms, and finally crossed the beauti- 
ful lake to the town of Lucerne, there to receive a whole bundle 
of letters from home — from father, mother, brother, sister, and 
child — to end the day. When I think of that day's journey, — 
beginning in Italy, and ending in Germany ; beginning under an 
46* 



54^ THEODORE PARKER. 

Italian sun, at mid-day surrounded by snow-fields and glaciers, 
and at its close amid the apple-blossoms of Germany, — it seems 
to me that that varied and wonderful day is a sort of type of the 
life of our friend Theodore Parker ; its youth Italian, all fresh 
and gushing with ten thousand springs of early, boyish life, and 
hope and animation, and with all the varied study and activity of 
the child and youth ; its early morning passed in the stern work 
of climbing up the mountain-side ; its mid-day with God's ever- 
lasting sun over his head, and the great, broad fields all around, 
over which his eye looked ; and, all through its afternoon-hours, 
passing on into an ever-increasing affluence of spring and sum- 
mer, and ending at last in the sweet bosom of affection, grati- 
tude, and love." 

At the close of the regular services at the Music Hall 
on the 3d of June, — on which occasion an appreciative dis- 
course on the character of Mr. Parker was delivered by his 
friend Samuel J. May, — a meeting of the society was held 
to express their sense of the loss sustained in their min- 
ister's death. Mr. Charles W. Slack, chairman of the 
standing committee, called the meeting to order ; and Mr. 
Frank B. Sanborn presented the fitting resolutions, which, 
touching as they were, failed to convey all there was in his 
friends' thoughts or his own. Two days earlier, on June 1, 
the Fraternity — an organization composed of members 
of the society for the purpose of aiding in all suitable 
ways the minister and standing committee — had met, and 
adopted resolutions in behalf of its own members. 

On Sunday, June 17, exercises in commemoration of 
the death of Theodore Parker were held by the Twenty- 
eighth Congregational Society in the Music Hall. The 
immense audience, many standing, remained patient and 
attentive through proceedings which lasted upwards of 
two hours. The stand at which he had so long preached 
was covered with flowers. A cross of white roses and 
evergreen hung in front ; wreaths of variegated flowers, 
the rarest and most beautiful of the season, were on either 



TRIBUTES. 547 

side ; on the top stood vases with large bouquets. Lilies 
of the valley, Mr. Parker's favorite, lay beside the Bible. 
The services consisted of prayer, the reading of expres- 
sive passages from Scripture, the singing of hymns which 
the minister loved to read, — one of them his own selec- 
tion for this very occasion, — and addresses by Charles 
M. Ellis, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Wendell Phillips, — 
three men who knew him well, had the discernment to 
understand him, and the tongues to say what they had to 
say with as much truth as eloquence. A portion of their 
words, the portion that is most interesting now, is given. 

Mr. Ellis spoke first, he being most intimately associated 
with Mr. Parker as a parishioner and personal friend. 
His voice was the voice of the society : — 

" The resolve ' that Theodore Parker should have a chance 
to be heard ' was more than the word of a friend, or a protest 
for religious freedom, or a plan for a free church. Before the 
South-Boston sermon, it was known who and what was coming 
in this young preacher, who had said, ' God still lives ; man 
has lost none of his high nature : ' and in his parable of Paul, 
1 1 shall walk by God's light, and fear not.' It was thought 
that the new truth would be spread by his voice ; perhaps not 
dreamed that one man could spread it so widely. But that sim- 
ple resolve, the seed of this society, was dropped in faith that 
that truth would prevail ; the mover of it having a year or two 
before, in a little book now forgotten, shown how it was the 
'basis of all true art, criticism, society, morals, laws, and 
religion.' But of this society : — 

"First, We maybe content to leave almost all — as to what 
he undid, that is matter of discussion at this day, whilst parti- 
sans define their positions, priests their creeds — with a word 
which covers it all, vera pro gratis. If truth be started, let old 
errors go. 

" Next let us look to what he created and did. He ascended 
to the sublime heights of philosophy and religion ; by thought 
and study made clear to the intellect the truth that fired his 
soul, — that ' God is infinite perfection, power, wisdom, justice, 



548 THEODORE PARKER. 

love,' — and plainly showed it to the world. He saw and showed 
how, historically and by nature, man grows in the light of love, 
and has his eyes opened to spiritual truth, as flowers beneath 
the sun. He took truth from books and scholars, religion from 
temples and the priests, and showed them to common men. 

" His basis was man^s intuition of God, and direct perception 
of his laws. We see that the old theologies were most dis- 
turbed by his ideas, as slavery was, of all institutions, most 
shaken by his labors. Probably time will show that the most 
positive and complete of his intellectual works was his spiritual 
theology. 

" Calmly, and at length, alas ! with labor too great for that fail- 
ing frame, thinking death near, — as he said, ' up to his shoul- 
ders in his grave,' — he reviewed that work. He wished to live to 
round it off, hoping for the length of years and strength of his 
ancestors, but ready to pass the golden gates to immortal life. 
His work is fragmentary in relation to his idea, though so much 
is in itself complete. He tells us, that, after his discourse 
of * Matters pertaining to Religion,' he formed a plan, and pre- 
pared for the afternoon and evening of his days, to show the 
' History of the Progressive Development of Religion among 
the Leading Races of Mankind.' 

" What a few in the grove of the academies, by the lamp of 
philosophy, in moments of vision, had seen, had become so 
clear to him, that he would not only make it plain, and prove it to 
the reason of men, but would traverse the history of the world, 
and show its growth ; show how, by either method, analysis, or 
synthesis, this one truth was the culmination of human thought. 
Well may we leave theologies, christologies, creeds, statutes, 
societies, governments, to take care of themselves. 

" Success ! For fifteen years a free church ; this truth em- 
bodied in labors for the dangerous, perishing, criminal classes, 
for education, woman, temperance, freedom, peace ; its light 
thrown on the lives of our great men. and heroes ; put in vol- 
umes that will live with the English tongue ; put into labors that 
now move and will move the American Church and State whilst 
they endure ; set forth in a system of religion, a positive spirit- 
ual theology, a method of spiritual culture ; shadowing a scheme 
of ethics ; containing almost the only fit attempt to state the 
law of nature, the law of laws, in the language ; his thought, his 
labor, his life, — these are success and triumph enough." 



TRIBUTES. 549 

Mr. Emerson followed : — 

" He whose voice will not be heard here again could well 
afford to tell his experiences : they were all honorable to him, 
and were part of the history of the civil and religious liberty of 
his times. Theodore Parker was a son of the soil, charged with 
the energy of New England ; strong, eager, inquisitive of knowl- 
edge ; of a diligence that never tired ; upright ; of a haughty 
independence, yet the gentlest of companions ; a man of study, 
fit for a man of the world ; with decided opinions, and plenty of 
power to state them ; rapidly pushing his studies so far as to 
leave few men qualified to sit as his critics. He elected his post 
of duty, or accepted nobly that assigned him in his rare consti- 
tution, — wonderful acquisition of knowledge; a rapid wit that 
heard all, and welcomed all that came, by seeing its bearing. 
Such was the largeness of his reception of facts, and his skill to 
employ them, that it looked as if he were some president of 
council to whom a score of telegraphs were ever bringing in 
reports ; and his information would have been excessive but for 
the noble use he made of it, ever in the interest of humanity. 
He had a strong understanding, a logical method, a love for 
facts, a rapid eye for their historic relations, and a skill in strip- 
ping them of traditional lustres. He had a sprightly fancy, and 
often amused himself with throwing his meaning into pretty 
apologues ; yet we can hardly ascribe to his mind the poetic 
element, though his scholarship had made him a reader and 
quoter of verses. A little more feeling of the poetic signifi- 
cance of his facts would have disqualified him for some of his 
severer offices to his generation. The old religions have a 
charm for most minds, which it is a little uncanny to disturb. 
It is sometimes a question, shall we not leave them to decay 
without rude shocks ? I remember that I found some harsh- 
ness in his treatment both of Greek and Hebrew antiquity, and 
sympathized with the pain of many good people in his auditory, 
whilst I acquitted him, of course, of any wish to be flippant. 

" He came at a time, when, to the irresistible march of opinion, 
the forms still retained by the most advanced sects showed 
loose and lifeless ; and he, with something less of affectionate 
attachment to the old, or with more vigorous logic, rejected 
them. It is objected to him that he scattered too many illu- 



55© THEODORE PARKER. 

sions. Perhaps more tenderness would have been graceful ; 
but it is vain to charge him with perverting the opinions of the 
new generation. The opinions of men are organic. Simply 
those came to him who found themselves expressed by him ; 
and had they not met this enlightened mind, in which they 
beheld their own opinions combined with zeal in every cause 
of love and humanity, they would have suspected their own 
opinions, and suppressed them, and so sunk into melancholy 
or malignity, a feeling of loneliness and hostility to what was 
reckoned respectable. It is plain to me that he has achieved 
an historic immortality here ; that he has so woven himself in 
these few years into the history of Boston, that he can never 
be left out of your annals. It will not be in the acts of city 
councils, nor of obsequious mayors, nor in the State House, 
the proclamations of governors, with their failing virtue, — 
failing them at critical moments, — that the coming generations 
will study what really befell ; but in the plain lessons of Theo- 
dore Parker in this Music Hall, in Faneuil Hall, or in legisla- 
tive committee-rooms, the true temper and authentic record 
of these days will be read. The next generation will care little 
for the chances of elections that govern governors now; it 
will care little for fine gentlemen who behaved shabbily : but it 
will read very intelligently in' his rough story, fortified with 
exact anecdotes, precise with names and dates, what part was 
taken by each actor ; who threw himself into the cause of hu- 
manity ; who came to the rescue of civilization at a hard pinch, 
and who blocked its course. 

" The vice charged against America is the want of sincerity 
in leading men. It does not lie at his door. He never kept 
back the truth for fear to make an enemy. But, on the other 
hand, it was complained that he was bitter and harsh ; that his 
zeal burned with too hot a flame. It is so difficult, in evil times, 
to escape this charge! — for the faithful preacher most of all. 
It was his merit, like Luther, Knox, Latimer, and John 
Baptist, to speak tart truth when that was peremptory, and 
when there were few to say it. But his sympathy with good- 
ness was not less energetic. One fault he had : he overesti- 
mated his friends, I may well say it, and sometimes vexed them 
with the importunity of his good opinion, whilst they knew 
better the ebb which follows exaggerated praise. He was 



TRIBUTES. 551 

capable, it must be said, of the most unmeasured eulogies on 
those he esteemed, especially if he had any jealousy that they 
did not stand with the Boston public as highly as they ought. 
His commanding merit as a reformer is this, that he insisted be- 
yond all men in pulpits — I cannot think of one rival — that 
the essence of Christianity is its practical morals : it is there 
for use, or it is nothing ; and if you combine it with sharp 
trading, or with ordinary city ambitions to gloss over municipal 
corruptions, or private intemperance, or successful fraud, or 
immoral politics, or unjust wars, or the cheating of Indians, or 
the robbery of frontier nations, or leaving your principles at 
home to show on the high seas or in Europe a supple com- 
plaisance to tyrants, it is an hypocrisy, and the truth is not in 
you ; and no love of religious music, or of dreams of Sweden- 
borg, or praise of John Wesley or of Jeremy Taylor, can save 
you from the satan which you are. 

" His ministry fell on a political crisis also ; on the years 
when Southern slavery broke over its old banks, made new and 
vast pretensions, and wrung from the weakness or treachery of 
Northern people fatal concessions in the Fugitive-slave Bill and 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Two days, bitter in the 
memory of Boston, — the days of the rendition of Sims and of 
Burns, — made the occasion of his most remarkable discourses. 
He kept nothing back. In terrible earnest he denounced the 
public crime, and meted out to every official, high and low, his 
due portion. By the incessant power of his statement, he 
made and held a party. It was his great service to freedom. 
He took away the reproach of silent consent that would other- 
wise have lain against the indignant minority, by uttering in the 
hour and place wherein these outrages were done the stern pro- 
test. There were, of course, multitudes to censure and defame 
this truth-speaker. But the brave know the brave. Fops, 
whether in drawing-rooms or churches, will utter the fop's 
opinion, and faintly hope for the salvation of his soul : but his 
manly enemies, who despised the fops, honored him ; and it is 
well known that his great hospitable heart was the sanctuary to 
which every soul conscious of an earnest opinion came for 
sympathy, — alike the brave slaveholder and the brave slave- 
rescuer. These met in the house of this honest man ; for 
every sound heart loves a responsible person, — one who does 



552 THEODORE PARKER. 

not in generous company say generous things, and in mean 
company base things, but says one thing, now cheerfully, now 
indignantly, but always because he must, and because he sees 
that whether he speak, or refrain from speech, this is said over 
him, and history, nature, and all souls testify to the same. 

" Ah, my brave brother ! it seems as if, in a frivolous age, our 
loss were immense, and your place cannot be supplied. But you 
will already be consoled in the transfer of your genius, know- 
ing well that the nature of the world will affirm to all men, in all 
times, that which for twenty-five years you valiantly spoke ; 
that the winds of Italy murmur the same truth over your grave, 
the winds of America over these bereaved streets ; that the 
sea which bore your mourners home affirms it, the stars in 
their courses, and the inspirations of youth ; whilst the polished 
and pleasant traitors to human rights, with perverted learning 
and disgraced graces, rot and are forgotten with their double 
tongue, saying all that is sordid for the corruption of man." 

Wendell Phillips then laid another manly tribute on 
the grave of his friend : — 

" There is one thing every man may say of this pulpit : it 
was a live reality, and no sham. Whether tearing theological 
idols to pieces at West Roxbury, or here battling with the 
every-day evils of the streets, it was ever a live voice, and no 
mechanical or parrot-tune ; ever fresh from the heart of God, 
as these flowers, these lilies, — the last flower over which, when 
eyesight failed him, with his old gesture he passed his loving 
hand, and said, ' How sweet ! ' As in that story he loved so 
much to tell of Michael Angelo, when -in the Roman palace 
Raphael was drawing his figures too small, Angelo sketched a 
colossal head of fit proportions, and taught Raphael his fault ; 
so Parker criticised these other pulpits, not so much by censure 
as by creation ; by a pulpit proportioned to the hour, broad as 
humanity, frank as truth, stern as justice, and loving as Christ. 
Here is the place to judge him. In St. Paul's Cathedral the 
epitaph says, if you would know the genius of Christopher 
Wren, 'look around.' Do you ask proof how full were the 
hands, how large the heart, how many-sided the brain, of your 
teacher : listen, and you will hear it in the glad, triumphant cer- 



TRIBUTES. 553 

tainty of your enemies, that you must close these doors, since 
his place can never be filled. Do you ask proof of his efficient 
labor, and the good soil into which that seed fell : gladden your 
eyes by looking back, and seeing for how many months the 
impulse his vigorous hand gave you has sufficed, spite of boding 
prophecy, to keep these doors open. Yes, he has left those 
accustomed to use weapons, and not merely to hold up his 
hands. And not only among yourselves : from another city I 
received a letter, full of deep feeling ; and the writer, an Ortho- 
dox church-member, says, — 

" ' I was a convert to Theodore Parker before I was a convert 

to . If there is any thing of value in the work I am doing 

to-day, it may, in an important sense, be said to have had its 
root in Parker's heresy: I mean the habit — without which 
Orthodoxy stands emasculated, and good for nothing — of inde- 
pendently passing on the empty and rotten pretensions of 
churches and churchmen, which I learned earliest, and more 
than from any other, from Theodore Parker. He has my love, 
my respect, my admiration.' 

"Yes, his diocese is broader than Massachusetts. His in- 
fluence extends very far outside these walls. Every pulpit 
in Boston is freer and more real to-day because of the ex- 
istence of this. The fan of his example scattered the chaff 
of a hundred sapless years. One whole city is fresher to-day 
because of him. The most sickly and timid soul under 
yonder steeple, hide-bound in days and forms and beggarly 
Jewish elements, little dreams how ten times worse and 
narrower it was before this sun warmed the general atmos- 
phere around. As was said of Burke's unsuccessful impeach- 
ment of Warren Hastings, ' Never was the great object of 
punishment, the prevention of crime, more completely obtained. 
Hastings was acquitted ; but tyranny and i?ijustice were 
condemned wherever English was spoken.' So we may say 
of Boston and Theodore Parker. Grant that few adopted 
his extreme theological views, that not many sympathized in his 
politics : still, that Boston is nobler, purer, braver, more loving, 
more Christian, to-day, is due more to him than to all the pulpits 
that vex her sabbath air. He raised the level of sermons intel- 
lectually and morally. Other preachers were compelled to grow 
in manly thought and Christian morals in very self-defence. As 
47 



554 THEODORE PARKER. 

Christ preached of the fall of the tower of Siloam the week 
before, and what men said of it in the streets of Jerusalem ; 
so Parker rang through our startled city the news of some fresh 
crime against humanity, — some slave-hunt, or wicked court, or 
prostituted official, — till frightened audiences actually took bond 
of their new clergyman that they should not be tormented 
before their time. 

" Men say he erred on that great question of our age, — the 
place due to the Bible. But William Crafts, one of the bravest 
men who ever fled from our vulture to Victoria, writes to a 
friend, 'When the slave-hunters were on our track, and no 
other minister except yourself came to direct our attention to 
the God of the oppressed, Mr. Parker came with his wise 
counsel, and told us where and how to go ; gave us money. 
But that was not all : he gave me a weapon to protect our liber- 
ties, and a Bible to guide our souls. I have that Bible now, and 
shall ever prize it most highly.' 

" How direct and frank his style ! — just level to the nation's 
ear. No man ever needed to read any of his sentences twice 
to catch its meaning. None suspected that he thought other 
than he said, or more than he confessed. 

" Like all such men, he grew daily ; never too old to learn. 
Mark how closer to actual life, how much bolder in reform, are 
all his later sermons, especially since he came to the city, 
every year a step 

' Forward persevering to the last, 
From well to better, daily self -surpassed.' 

"There are men whom we measure by their times, content 
and expecting to find them subdued to what they work in. 
They are the chameleons of circumstance ; they are yEolian 
harps, toned by the breeze that sweeps over them. There are 
others who serve as guide-posts and landmarks : we measure 
their times by them. Such was Theodore Parker. Hereafter 
the writer will use him as a mete-wand to measure the heart 
and civilization of Boston. Like the Englishman, a year or two 
ago, who suspected our great historian could not move in the 
best circles of the city when it dropped out that he did not 
know Theodore Parker, distant men gauge us by our tolera- 
tion and recognition of him. Such men are our nilometers : 



TRIBUTES. 555 

the harvest of the future is according to the height that the 
flood of our love rises round them. Who cares now that Har- 
vard vouchsafed him no honors ? But history will save the fact 
to measure the calculating and prudent bigotry of our times. 

" Some speak of him only as a bitter critic and harsh 
prophet. Pulpits and journals shelter their plain speech in 
mentioning him under the example of what they call his 'un- 
sparing candor.' Do they feel that the strangeness of their 
speech, their unusual frankness, needs apology and example ? 
But he was far other than a bitter critic ; though thank God for 
every drop of that bitterness that came like a wholesome 
rebuke on the dead, saltless sea of American life ! Thank God 
for every indignant protest, for every Christian admonition, that 
the Holy Spirit breathed through those manly lips ! But, if he 
deserved any single word, it was 'generous.' Vir generosus is 
the description that leaps to the lip of every scholar. He was 
generous of money. Born on a New-England farm in those 
days when small incomings made every dollar a matter of im- 
portance, he no sooner had command of wealth than he lived 
with open hands. Not even the darling ambition of a great 
library ever tempted him to close his ear to need. Go to 
Venice or Vienna, to Frankfort or to Paris, and ask the refu- 
gees who have gone back — when here friendless exiles but 
for him — under whose roof they felt most at home. One of 
our oldest and best teachers writes me, that telling him once, in 
the cars, of a young lad of rare mathematical genius who could 
read Laplace, but whom narrow means debarred from the 
university, ' Let him enter,' said Theodore Parker : ' I will pay 
his bills.' " 

" No sect, no special study, no one idea, bounded his sympa- 
thy ; but he was generous in judgment where a common man 
would have found it hard to be so. Though he does not go 
1 down to dust without his fame,' though Oxford and Germany 
sent him messages of sympathy, still no word of approbation 
from the old grand names of our land, no honors from univer- 
sity or learned academy, greeted his brave, diligent, earnest life. 
Men can confess that they voted against his admission to sci- 
entific bodies for his ideas, feeling all the while that his brain 
could furnish half the academy ; and yet, thus ostracized, he 
was the most generous — more than just — interpreter of the 



556 THEODORE PARKER. 

motives of those about him, and looked on, while others reaped 
where he sowed, with most generous joy in their success. 
Patiently analyzing character, and masterly in marshalling facts, 
he stamped with generous justice the world's final judgment of 
Webster ; and, now that the soreness of the battle is over, 
friend and foe allow it. 

" He was generous of labor. Books never served to excuse 
him from any the humblest work. Though 'hiving wisdom 
with each studious year,' and passionately devoted to his desk, 
as truly as was said of Milton, ' the lowliest duties on himself 
he laid.' What drudgery of the street did that scholarly hand 
ever refuse ? Who so often and constant as he in the trenches 
when a slave-case made our city a camp ? Loving books, he 
had no jot of a scholar's indolence or timidity, but joined hands 
with labor everywhere. Erasmus would have found him good 
company, and Melancthon got brave help over a Greek manu- 
script : but the likeliest place to have found him in that age 
would have been at Zwingle's side on the battle-field, pierced 
with a score of fanatic spears ; for, above all things, he was ter- 
ribly in earnest. If I might paint him in one word, I should 
say he was always in earnest. 

" Fortunate man ! he lived long enough to see the eyes of the 
whole nation turned toward him as to a trusted teacher ; fortu- 
nate, indeed, in a life so noble, that even what faas scorned 
from the pulpit will surely become oracular from the tomb ; 
thrice fortunate, if he loved fame and future influence, that the 
leaves which bear his thoughts to posterity are not freighted 
with words penned by sickly ambition, or wrung from hunger, 
but with earnest thoughts on dangers that make the ground 
tremble under our feet, and the heavens black over our head, — 
the only literature sure to live. Ambition says, ' I will write," 
and be famous.' It is only a dainty tournament, a sham-fight ; 
forgotten when the smoke clears away. Real books are like 
Yorktown or Waterloo, whose cannon shook continents at the 
moment, and echo down the centuries. Through such chan- 
nels Parker poured his thoughts. 

" And true hearts leaped to his side. No man's brain ever 
made him warmer friends ; no man's heart ever held them 
firmer. He loved to speak of how many hands he had in every 
city, in every land, ready to work for him. With royal serenity 



TRIBUTES. 557 

he levied on all. Vassal hearts multiplied the great chief's 
powers ; and at home the gentlest and deepest love, saintly, 
unequalled devotion, made even- hour sunny, held off every 
care, and left him double liberty to work. God comfort that 
widowed heart ! 

"Judge him by his friends. No man suffered anywhere who 
did not feel sure of his sympathy. In sick-chambers, and by 
the side of suffering humanity, lie kept his heart soft and young. 
No man lifted a hand anywhere for truth and right who did not 
look on Theodore Parker as his fellow-laborer. When men 
hoped for the future, this desk was one stone on which they 
planted their feet. Where more frequent than around his 
board would you find men familiar with Europe's dungeons and 
the mobs of our own streets ? Wherever the fugitive slave 
might worship, here was his Gibraltar : over his mantel, however 
scantily furnished, in this city or elsewhere, you were sure to 
find a picture of Parker. 

" The blessings of the poor are his laurels. Say that his 
words won doubt and murmur to trust in a loving God : let that 
be his record. Say that to the hated and friendless he was 
shield and buckler : let that be his epitaph. The glory of 
children is the fathers. When you voted ' that Theodore Parker 
should be heard in Boston,' God honored you. Well have you 
kept that pledge. In much labor and with many sacrifices he 
has laid the corner-stone : his work is ended here. God calls 
you to put on the top-stone. Let fearless lips and Christian 
lives be his monument." 

Theodore Parker's friends have spared no pains to keep 
his memory green. Skilful men of letters, themselves 
teachers and reformers, have analyzed his mental and 
moral character with rare delicacy. Preachers in sympa- 
thy, some with his theology, and some with his religion, 
have done their best to exhibit him as he was in his posi- 
tive attitudes toward his generation. The Parker Frater- 
nity have, from winter to winter, invited men who were 
supposed to know him better than most to call up his 
image freshly for study and admiration. Samuel Johnson 
and John Weiss have been among these. 

47* 



55^ THEODORE PARKER. 

The present biographer is permitted to use the follow- 
ing familiar letters from Prof. Edward Desor, written sev- 
eral years after his beloved friend's decease : — 

From Prof. E. Desor. 

Neufchatel, Feb. 13, 1868. 

My dear Mrs. Parker, — This is the second letter which 
I am able to write these last five weeks. Except one or two 
days, I cannot complain of severe pains ; but it is exceed- 
ingly tedious to be deprived of the use of the right arm and 
hand. Thus every year makes us acquainted with some new 
misery. What meaning and benefit there is in it, I could not, 
thus far, ascertain. Still I ought not to complain, since my lot is 
not of the worst ; and I am aware that many consider it as rather 
enviable. Do you know that I am drawing fast near sixty ? 
Fifty-seven years is no joke. It means that I am an old man, 
and that I must prepare myself for the great departure. 

But life needs not, for that reason, to be void ; nor is it. I 
consider, on the contrary, that I have still somewhat to do in 
scientific as well as in matters of general improvement. I espe- 
cially consider as such any thing that is done in the spirit of 
our dear Theodore Parker. There are some reforms going on 
in our country — for instance, at Bale — which would have 
filled our departed friend with joy. A new church is being 
formed, quite in the spirit of Parker ; and I know that his name 
is often mentioned there as one of the best authorities. Of 
course, they have to fight for their cause, as Parker had in 
Boston, especially against all the so-called respectable people, 
who are, for the most part, very orthodox. Now the young 
church has organized a series of public lectures, which are deliv- 
ered on the critical questions, such as atonement, miracles, sac- 
raments, &c, by the most eminent clergymen of the new 
school. 

But that is not all. After the lecture comes the discussion ; 
the head of the other party being there to defend their thesis. 
The people, seeing that it was a serious debate, proposed that 
the discussion should take place in the large hall of the garden- 
ers' guild, in which the same questions were discussed at the 
time of the Reformation. Of course, they did not convert each 



TRIBUTES. 559 

other ; but. according to what I heard, the discussions bore a 
serious and solemn character. Every thing went on in a very 
proper manner ; and I do not doubt that it will be for the bene- 
fit of the great cause of progress. What I am still more sure 
is, that, had our dear Parker been among us, he would have 
done his best to encourage this new church. 

What shall I tell you from here ? I am sitting on a beauti- 
ful morning in the upper floor of my house, with a line sun 
that falls into the room, quickening and cheering both my little 
birds, who are singing as much as they can, and the flowers 
which Mary has raised for my birthday, — splendid hyacinths, 
as fine as I ever saw. As to Mary herself, she is still unmar- 
ried, and growing old and gray, but still kind and careful. 
There is not much new in Combe Varin, except that the last 
storm has broken M. Martin's tall pine-tree along the roadside (I 
have not yet dared to inform him of the accident) ; whereas the 
double-headed Parker tree is still alive, although rather sickly. 
Lyman's linden, on the contrary, is in full vigor. A new one 
has been dedicated to friend Lesley. 

Your most affectionate 

E. Desor. 

Pray go occasionally to Cambridge, and pay a visit to Mrs. 
Manning for my sake. 

From the Same. 

Neufchatel, Feb. 13, 1869. 
My dear Mrs. Parker, — I am just leaving my breakfast- 
table, which I found decorated with magnificent hyacinths, snow- 
drops, and other flowers, which Mary has raised during the last 
months. There was also a mighty cake with my name on it. 
All that is very neat ; but, unfortunately, its true meaning is not 
very pleasant, because it is a step more towards the dissolution 
of our body. Well, it does not, after all, matter much, provided 
the mind preserves some strength and brightness. In this 
respect, I am happy to say that I have not to complain. And I 
dare say, if our dear Parker were alive, he would approve of 
what we have done, and are still doing, in a department which 
was more especially his ; viz., in liberal theology. We are 
organizing a church, which is very much like his own, — per- 



560 THEODORE PARKER. 

haps a little more radical, — and which may resume itself in the 
following tenets : — 

A church without sacerdoce, 
A religion without catechism, 
A worship without mystery, 
A moral without theology, 
A God without system. 

This doctrine, which disclaims, of course, all sorts of sacra- 
ments and of miraculous intervention, was preached a few 
months ago by a young professor of philosophy ; and caused, 
as you may imagine, a great disturbance among the orthodox. 
Still the discussion went on decently ; which would not have 
been the case some twenty or thirty years ago. Some of the 
most eminent leaders of the French Rational Church came to 
second us ; among others a M. Felix Pe'caud, well known by 
several publications, and a great admirer of Parker. You can- 
not imagine how delighted he was to find around me so many 
traces of our lamented friend. I showed him his likeness, 
some of his letters, his works ; which all interested him in the 
highest degree. Had it not been so cold, I would have brought 
him to Combe Varin to show him the room, and the pine-tree 
which bears his name. The latter is still alive, although some- 
what weather-beaten; whereas that of Martin, on the side of 
the road, has been blown down. 

I wish and hope this letter may find you in good health, and 
that you will not forget to tell me of it. Pray give my very 
best regards to Miss Shannon, whom I liked very much indeed. 
What a pity it was that I could not enjoy more her company ! 
Give also my regards to Miss Stevenson ; and, should you hap- 
pen to pay a visit to my old Mother Manning at Cambridge, do 
not forget to remember me in your conversation. 

Yours, 

E. Desor. 

Mary sends her best love. She has not yet found a hus- 
band ; but has not yet given it up. 



TRIBUTES. 561 



From the Same. 

Neufchatel, Feb. 13, 1870. 

My dear Mrs. Parker, — I will not follow your example : 
and, rather than suppose that you do not care about this corre- 
spondence, I prefer supposing that some accident has prevented 
you from writing on Parker's birthday. Perhaps you have been 
absent, or had too much to do ; although I am at loss to sup- 
pose what business you may have. Let me suppose that you 
are still enjoying that excellent health which was your privilege 
thus far. As to myself, I have no reason to complain this year 
with my health : it has been better than many years before. 
The rheumatism, especially, has not taken hold of me ; and this 
is an unexpected good fortune. Nor was I less active than in 
former years. My burden, instead of being lightened, has, on 
the contrary, been increased ; for they have elected me a mem- 
ber of the Swiss Congress, which will oblige me to spend yearly 
about two months at Berne for the coming three years. My 
relation with Theodore Parker has also caused me an increase 
of business, inasmuch as they have created in our canton a 
liberal church, which has caused a great deal of trouble among 
the conservatives and fogies of all descriptions. Of course, 
Parker's friend could not stay away. My house was, on the 
contrary, frequently the rendezvous of the various preachers 
and leaders of the movement. This, of course, did not make me 
very beloved among the fashionable people ; but, on the other 
hand, made me rather popular among the liberal minds of all 
Switzerland. Among the lecturers who came to us from the 
various parts of France and Belgium, there was also a M. 
Bost, preacher at Venders (Belgium), who gave us an excellent 
letter about our dear Theodore Parker. The lecturer was lis- 
tened to with great attention and earnestness ; and I dare say 
this noble life, exposed with great enthusiasm, had a good influ- 
ence on our public. — Mary sends her kindest regards. She is 
still the old busy housekeeper, taking great care of every thing, 
— the animals, the plants, and even the books. 

I do not know why neither friend Lyman nor friend Lesley 
writes to me. I intend to spend a week with Martin in the 
month of March. We have now a great deal of snow, and 
sleighing in general. 

Your E. Desor. 



562 THEODORE PARKER. 



From the Same. 

Neufchatel, Feb. 13, 1872. 

My dear Mrs. Parker, — Again a year more ; again a 
large step on the slope that leads to the close of this earthly 
career : but, instead of being quiet, I am more than ever in the 
harness, and can hardly, among the pre-occupations of our 
federal and cantonal revision, find a moment to devote to the 
absent friends. You will therefore excuse me for being rather 
brief this time. And still there are many things which I would 
like to talk over with you, if I could sit quietly down and 
review the past days. My scientific pursuits led me last 
autumn to Italy, where there was an international congress of 
anthropology and prehistoric archaeology (at Bologna). I went 
from Bologna to Rome and Naples, and thought with uncom- 
mon interest of the excursion which we once decided to make 
to the Vesuv with our dear friend Theodore. How he would 
have enjoyed such excursions with men of science, as were my 
companions, in the pursuit not only of natural problems, but 
also of archaeological ones, such as are now being discussed 
everywhere ! 

It was not our intention to stay at Florence ; but, in order 
to be there a day, I separated from my companions at Pisa, and 
went to Florence. It was on a fine day. , My first and near 
attraction was the grave in the churchyard, you know. I 
spent there about an hour in quiet and silence. The tomb 
was in a proper state of conservation ; the rose-bush vigorous, 
and so the ivy. I took a leaf of the last ; which I sent in a 
letter to one of the heads of our church, one of the greatest 
admirers of Parker, — Dr. Lang at Zurich. I took also the last 
bud of the rose, which I keep for a French admirer of Parker, — 
Mr. Felix Pe'caud, one of the finest minds and noblest hearts 
I have met in this life. You will, perhaps, ask why I did not 
cut one for you. This was, indeed, my first impression ; and I 
would have done it, had I not considered how many Americans 
are living at and travelling to Florence, and that it is but 
natural to think that some of them are anxious of visiting that 
venerated grave, and provide you with flowers and leaves. Our 
friend Lyman was also present before my mind when I sat on 
the margin of the beloved grave. Pray tell his wife, Mrs. 



TRIBUTES. 563 

Lyman, that I understand how every thing and every word 
that reminds her husband must be interesting to her. There 
was never a nobler character than his. 

I had the misfortune of missing, last summer, the visit of 
Dr. Samuel Cabot and his wife. It was a great disappointment 
for me. Were I not so short of time, I would have written long 
ago. My old Mary asks me to remember her to good Mrs. 
Parker, and to say that she has not yet found a husband. She 
is growing old. 

Your most sincerely, 

E. Desor. 

From the Same. 

Neufchatel, April 6, 1873. 

My dear Mrs. Parker, — It is for the first time that I am 
late with my writing to you on my birthday. Strange ! the 
older I am growing, the more have I to work in all directions ; 
so that I am obliged to neglect those duties which I ought 
above all to fulfil. It is a peculiar feature of our small repub- 
lics, that, when a man has some good will and some leisure 
for working, he soon gets overburdened. That is my case ; 
and I trust that you will take it into consideration, and not be 
angry with me on account of my neglect. 

I need not to say that I have not in the least lost sight of 
the happy days when I used to enjoy your and our dear Par- 
ker's company, and delight in his noble deeds. Could I forget 
the benefit which I derived from this intercourse, the interest- 
ing reforms which are going on in religious matters would 
suffice to recall our beloved friend to my memory. I do not 
know how they think of him and of his labors in the United 
States : the fact is, that no important step is taken in our 
religious affairs without the name of Parker being quoted. I 
know more than one of our Unitarian ministers who has no 
greater aim than to follow his footsteps. Were you to attend 
our meetings, you would frequently hear him quoted as one of 
the most prominent preachers of the present age. There is 
especially one of our Unitarian ministers, Dr. Lang of Zurich, 
now the leading man among the Swiss Unitarians, who con- 
siders him almost as a prophet. 

I had, some months ago, the occasion of making the acquaint- 
ance of another admirer of Parker, — Miss Carpenter, — who felt 



564 THEODORE PARKER. 

very thankful when I gave her a little seal with Parker's head, 
which I had at the time made at Florence. This noble woman 
is, as I hear, about to start for Boston, in spite of her seventy- 
years, for the sake of organizing refuge-houses for the liberated 
criminals and abandoned children, after the model of the Eng- 
lish institutes of that kind. Should you happen to meet her, 
I pray you to remember me kindly to her, and to return her 
friendly remembrance. 

Now as to myself and my household. I have nothing particu- 
lar to say, except that, in spite of the age, I try to keep as active 
as possible ; and, in fact, I far prefer to have too much to do 
than too little. My public duties call me frequently abroad, to 
Berne as well as to Zurich. Friend Parker would probably be 
very much astonished to hear that I am now vice-president of 
the Swiss House of Representatives. My household is pretty 
much the same. There is old Mary, still active and devoted, 
August, and partly, also, Benj, although the latter is married. 
Mary has given up marrying. I intend to start, towards the 
end of next month, for the World's Exhibition at Vienna. Now 
please let me know how you are, and believe me ever 
Your faithful 

E. Desor. 

After this, it may seem unnecessary, to say the least, 
for the writer of this biography to add any words of his 
own descriptive of Theodore Parker \ for though the 
language quoted above, as well as much of that referred 
to, is the language of eulogy, still it is the language of 
wise and discriminating men, who praise thoughtfully, 
and judge while they praise. But the familiar daily con- 
verse with private journals and letters makes on the mind 
a peculiar impression quite different from that left by 
study of published writings, or observations of an open 
career ; and which may be worth preserving. The careful 
biographer sees traits that are concealed from even the 
discerning eye of companion or onlooker, and detects 
mental qualities which are overlaid by the deposits of 
outward life. Parker had a habit of confiding secrets to 



TRIBUTES. 565 

his journal ; of laying bare the processes by which his 
results were reached ; and so revealing, as it were, the 
texture of his faculties, the intellectual " protoplasm," if I 
may use the word, which afterward took forms of life. 
To one who has been privileged to examine this, much of 
what has been said by way of commendation and of cen- 
sure is aside from the truth* The student of these pri- 
vate papers is confirmed in an assurance of the man's 
simple genuineness, of his honesty, sincerity, faithfulness, 
more than that, of his strict dealing with himself, his 
humility, modesty, unpretentiousness, lowliness, and puri- 
ty of spirit. Anybody who would might see that he was a 
good deal of a hero : his biographer knows that he was 
a good deal of a saint. His power to assert his will was 
apparent to all, painfully evident to some. His power to 
resign his will they only knew who knew him intimately : 
they knew, too, from what self-submission his self-asser- 
tion sprang. Men are ready to tell of the wilfulness he 
exhibited : they cannot tell of the wilfulness he sup- 
pressed. His individuality looked aggressive, and doubt- 
less it was : but it must be said that he was as jealous of 
others' individuality as of his own ; laid on himself a sol- 
emn vow never to infringe on the sacred personality of 
enemy or friend j and piously abstained from crushing 
when he could not lead. The efforts he made to keep 
himself down appear in every volume of the journal, and 
make passages of it as touching as the confessions of 
St. Augustine or the soliloquies of Paul. 

He was fond of roughly classifying the human faculties 
for practical purposes, thus: 1. The religious; 2. The 
moral ; 3. The affectional ; 4. The intellectual. Wor- 
ship of the absolute perfection : that was chief. Al- 
legiance to eternal law : that came next. Subordinate 
only to these were loving fidelity to human relations, 
power of understanding. Mental power, in its several 
phases, majestic and important as it is, must be placed 



566 THEODORE PARKER. 

last. Saint, hero, lover, thinker, — this was the order of 
his human hierarchy. The classification may have re- 
flected his own nature : whether it did or not, his own 
nature illustrated the classification. 

With him the religious sentiment was supreme. It had 
roots in his being wholly distinct from its mental or sen- 
sible forms of expression, — completely distinguished from 
theology, which claimed to give an account of it in words ; 
and from ceremonies, which claimed to embody it in 
rites and symbols. Never evaporating in mystical dreams, 
nor entangled in the meshes of cunning speculation, it 
preserved its freshness and bloom and fragrance in every 
passage of his life. His sense of the reality of divine 
things was as strong as was ever felt by a man of such 
clear intelligence. His feeling for divine things never 
lost its glow ; never was damped by misgiving, dimmed by 
doubt, or clouded by sorrow. The intensity of his faith 
in Providence, and of his assurance of personal immortality, 
seems almost fanatical to modern men who sympathize in 
general with his philosophy. His confidence in the lat- 
ter faith particularly, not all theists share. Yet to him it 
was native, instinctive (in the sense of spontaneous and 
irresistible), born of reverence, aspiration, trust, affection, 
which were ineradicable qualities of his being. So far 
from dreading to submit his faith to tests, he courted 
tests ; was as eager to hear the arguments against his 
belief as for it ; was as fair in weighing evidence on his 
opponent's side as on his own. "Oh that mine adver- 
sary had written a book ! " he was ready to cry, not that 
he might demolish it, but that he might read it. He 
knew the writings of Moleschott, and talked with him 
personally. The books of Carl Vogt were not strange to 
him. The philosophy of Ludwig Biichner, if philosophy 
it can be called, was as familiar to him as to any of Biich- 
ner's disciples. He was intimate with the thoughts of 
Feuerbach. He drew into discussion every atheist and 



TRIBUTES. 567 

materialist he met; talked with them closely, confiden- 
tially ; and rose from the interview more confident in the 
strength of his own positions than ever. Darwin's first 
book " On the Origin of Species," which was brought to 
him in Rome, contained nothing that disturbed him. He 
thought it unsupported in many of its facts, and hasty in 
its generalizations ; but the doctrine itself was not offen- 
sive to him. Science he counted his best friend ; relied on 
it for confirmation of his faith ; and was only impatient be- 
cause it moved no faster. All the materialists in and out 
of Christendom had no power to shake his conviction of the 
infinite God and the immortal existence ; nor would have 
had, had he lived till he was a century old : for, in his view, 
the convictions were planted deep in human nature, and 
were demanded by the exigencies of human life. The ser- 
vice they rendered to mankind would have been their suffi- 
cient justification, had he found no other ; and in this aspect 
they interested him chiefly. He used them daily, as man, 
as minister, as reformer, — used them in the closet, the 
study, the house of mourning, the arena of strife ; and, 
finding them suitable for all emergencies, accepted them 
as heavenly provisions for them. If more worked their 1 
faiths as he did, fewer would assail them. Moleschott re- 
spected Parker ; Desor was his confidential friend ; Feuer^ 
bach would have taken him by the hand as a brother. 

It has been said that Parker accomplished nothing final 
as a religious reformer ; that if he thought of himself as 
the inaugurator of a second reformation, a reformation of 
Protestantism, the leader of a new " departure," as signifi- 
cant and momentous as that of the sixteenth century, he 
deceived himself. Luther, it is said, found a stopping- 
place, a terminus, and erected a "station," where nearly 
half of Christendom have been content to stay for three 
hundred years, and will linger, perhaps, three hundred 
years longer. Parker stretched a tent near what proved to 
be a " branch-road," where a considerable number of trav- 



568 THEODORE PARKER. 

ellers will pause on their journey, and refresh themselves, 
while waiting for the "through-train." That Parker 
thought otherwise, that he believed himself sent to pro- 
claim and define the faith of the next thousand years, 
merely gives another illustration of the delusions to which 
even great minds are subject. Already thought has swept 
beyond him ; already faith has struck into other paths, 
and taken up new positions. The scientific method has 
supplanted the theological and sentimental, and has car- 
ried many over to new regions of belief. Parker is a 
great name, was a great power, will be a great memory ; 
but it is doubtful if he did the work of a Voltaire or a 
Rousseau : that he did not do the work of a Luther is not 
doubtful at all. 

There is much truth in this ; but is it the whole truth ? 
That Parker did not inaugurate a second reformation is 
frankly conceded. The conditions of a second reforma- 
tion were not given. In Luther's day there was no sci- 
ence as there is now, no general intelligence, no wide- 
spread literature, no awakened thought. Christendom 
included civilized and intelligent mind : Romanism stood 
for Christendom. It was a solid mass: Luther broke it 
in two, and of one part made a separate dominion ; 
which can never be done again. Luther's " terminus " 
was not for all time, but only for so long as the human 
mind remained in essentially the same condition of de- 
pendence in which he found it. Protestantism has been 
decomposing ever since it began its career, and is, by 
this time, pretty thoroughly demoralized. The trans- 
lation of the Bible into the popular speech, on which 
Luther relied for the establishment of his reform, did 
as much as any thing to scatter its force. Had Luther 
lived in the nineteenth century, he could have effected no 
more than Parker did. Henceforth it will be impossible 
to handle masses of men by the power of a single will or 
a single idea. 



TRIBUTES. 569 

Certainly Parker was not a discoverer. He originated 
no dofctrine \ he struck out no path. His religious 
philosophy existed before his day, and owed to him no 
fresh development. But he was the first great popular 
expounder of it ; the first who undertook to make it the 
basis of a faith for the common people ; the first who 
planted it as the corner-stone of the working-religion of 
mankind, and published it as the ground of a new spirit- 
ual structure, distinct from both Romanism and Prot- 
estantism. 

Some of his special beliefs will be dropped : some 
have been dropped already. Jesus no longer holds the 
place that Parker gave him. The ethics of the New Tes- 
tament have fallen into some discredit in the esteem of sci- 
entific moralists. The conception of Christianity, in its 
essence, has been greatly modified, and is destined to yet 
further modification. But these are incidental points, that 
do not affect the strength of his general position. His 
peculiarity was, that, assuming man to have a spiritual 
nature, he went directly to that for the revelations of truth 
and the inspirations of duty. The Romanist appealed to 
the Church ; the Protestant, to the Bible ; Parker, to the 
soul. The intuitive philosophy was his stro7ighold. That 
philosophy is not obsolete. It has lived several thousand 
years. It was old when Plato was a child ; and it will 
endure several thousand years yet to come. Parker's 
basis, therefore, is permanent. Others may build upon it 
different structures ; for it is common ground, wide enough 
for whole cities to stand upon : but the structure which 
Parker built — so ample, comfortable, hospitable, conven- 
ient, easy of access, commanding in site, stately at once, 
and democratic — will be the welcome home of multi- 
tudes who are wanderers in the intellectual world, and 
unable to construct heavenly mansions for themselves. 
The few educated, cultivated, self-reliant, must be left out 
of the account. Romanism never included everybody. 
48* 



570 THEODORE PARKER. 

Lutheranism was pronounced unsatisfactory by the best 
thinkers of the reformer's own day. This will be the case, 
even more, with " Parkerism." For all that, " Parkerism " 
may deserve to be regarded as a form of religion ; and 
Parker may merit the name of founder, — not of a sect, 
certainly ; he never dreamed of that : nor of a church ; 
for he believed more in ideas than in institutions : say, 
then, that he merits the name of crystallizer ; for he sup- 
plied the statement about which many floating thoughts 
gathered. If he did not make a terminus, he laid a new 
track, along which many will travel towards the one cen- 
tral terminus, — the truth. 

The ethics of Theodore Parker grew from the same root 
as his religion, and were part of the same system. These, 
too, rested on the spiritual philosophy, — the philosophy of 
intuition. He believed that to the human conscience was 
made direct revelation of the eternal law ; that the moral 
nature looked righteousness in the face. He was ac- 
quainted with the objections to this doctrine. The op- 
posite philosophy of utilitarianism, whether as taught by 
Bentham or by Mill, was well known to him, but was 
wholly unsatisfactory. Sensationalism in morals was as 
absurd, in his judgment, as sensationalism in faith. The 
Quaker doctrine of the inner light was nearer the truth, 
as he saw it, than the experience doctrine of Herbert 
Spencer. Experience might assist conscience, but create 
it never. Conscience might consult even expediency for 
its methods ; but for its parentage it must look elsewhere. 
Conscience for him was authority, divine, ultimate. 
What that voice commanded — and he did not go to 
Pennsylvania Avenue or Wall Street to learn what it 
commanded — he obeyed, even if it commanded the cut- 
ting off of the right hand, or the plucking out of the right 
eye. He would not compromise a principle, wrong a 
neighbor, injure a fellow-creature, take what was not fairly 
his, tell a falsehood, betray a trust, break a pledge, turn a 



TRIBUTES. 571 

deaf ear to the cry of human misery, for all the world could 
give him. At the heart of every matter there was a right 
and a wrong, both easily discernible by the simplest mind. 
The right was eternally right ; the wrong wa*s eternally 
wrong ; and eternal consequences were involved in either. 
Philosophers might find fault with his psychology: they 
did find fault with it. He answered them if he could ; if 
he could not, he left them answerless : but for himself he 
never doubted, but leaned against his pillar. A cloudy 
pillar it certainly was : both base and capital were lost in 
the mist of eternity ; but, so long as it bore up the moral 
universe, he cared not what it was made of. No casuist he. 
The school of fidelity was for him the school of wisdom. 
The journal makes note of a long talk with a friend who 
doubted the infallibility of conscience under any circum- 
stances, seemed phrenologically inclined, denied the will 
of man ; and the writer says ingenuously, " I could shed 
no light on the subject at all. He took the ground of 
Owen, that every thing is forecast in the mental or physical 
structure of the man. He will have a motive for all things, 
and makes action the result of the balance of forces inclin- 
ing this way or that. He will outgrow this. It can only 
be lived down. I have passed through the same stage." 
This occurred early in his career, when he was in West 
Roxbury ; but his position did not change essentially as 
he grew older. 

The strength of Parker's affections helped to confirm 
his faith in conscience, and give intensity to his moral 
instinct. He was a mighty lover. His friends were all 
glorified by his feeling, till they hardly knew themselves. 
He lavished on them terms of endearment ; had pet names 
for them all ; kept their anniversaries \ loved to have me- 
morials of them about him. But his affectionateness by 
no means confined itself to his friends. His heart was 
human : its humanity was as remarkable as its tenderness. 
Love gave him insight, knowledge, prophetic vision ; taught 



572 THEODORE PARKER. 

him to see the soul of truth in things erroneous, the soul 
of good in things evil. That he never forgot a kindness, 
never failed to reciprocate an act of friendliness, never 
neglected an opportunity of rendering service, is not all : 
his readiness to forgive those who hated him was as 
remarkable as his devotion to those who loved him. 
Beauty attracted him ; grace charmed him ; gifts gained 
his admiration ; but human qualities commanded his heart. 
Handsome or otherwise, graceful, accomplished, witty, 
learned, or otherwise, his love of qualities was the same, 
knowing no distinction of persons. Yet no man or woman 
ever breathed a whisper of suspicion against his constancy. 
No ardor of feeling softened to weakness the texture of 
his truth. 

The controversy is over Theodore Parker's intellectual 
character. Was he a philosopher, an original thinker, an 
exact scholar, a man of genius ? Whether he was or not 
is of much less consequence than is suspected ; for the 
power of his life and character lay in other departments. 
Some, perhaps, have claimed too high a place for him 
in the ranks of thinkers : possibly he himself overrated his 
intellectual endowment. If by "philosopher " be meant a 
man of pure reason, he was not one ; for with him reason, 
affection, and conscience went inseparably together : but if 
by " philosopher " be meant a " rational man," he deserves 
to be called one. He had the prime quality of mental 
integrity : he was a sincere lover of the truth ; would 
neither deceive himself nor others, if it could be avoided ; 
was no diplomatist of ideas, no politician of thoughts, no 
juggler with speech. He desired the ultimate fact. The 
charge of intellectual pretence or affectation cannot, with- 
out malignity, be brought against him. He was a devoted 
" lover of wisdom," and therefore, by definition, a philoso- 
pher. 

His mental endowments were extraordinary. What 
power of acquisition ! What power of retention ! Was 



TRIBUTES. 573 

there ever such a memory? It never lost a fact. In 1857, 
thirteen years after his visit to Europe, he wrote to a friend 
in Venice, " Please look at the ' Viaggi da Giovanni 
Gabota ' (or Gabotti, or Gabbotti) in the Ducal Library, 
and give me the exact title. It used to be the corner 
book in the corner of the library, next the Canale Grande, 
on the lowest shelf. The book is in no catalogue in 
America ; and men say there is no such." One day he 
recited, without hesitancy, a comic song of more than a 
dozen verses \ and said, when asked where he had learned 
it, " I never read it in my life j but, when I was twelve 
years old, my brother brought me to Boston, to the Mu- 
seum, and a man sang it there." He was then forty years 
of age. Dr. Nathan Lord of Dartmouth, an apologist for 
slavery in the days when slavery had apologists among 
divines, stated in a lecture, as a fact, that " the black Afri- 
cans were largely descended from the Canaanites, whose 
name was derived from Cain, the first murderer ; whence 
he assumed it to be quite probable that the blackness was 
a brand set on them, a mark of reprobation. A friend, 
being in Mr. Parker's study, asked him where Dr. Lord 
could have found the fact that the black Africans were 
descended from the Canaanites. "He got it," said 
Parker, "from Grotius' ' De Veritate ;' " and went to the 
shelf to verify the statement. The book was not there, 
but a narrow empty space where it usually stood. " Miss 
Stevenson must have lent the book: I have not. The 
statement you refer to occurs in that volume. Then he 
proceeded to say how far along in the book it was, how 
far down the page, and on which page it was printed. 
" Have you read the book lately ? " asked the friend. 
" No ; not for many years : I never read it but once." — 
" Is the passage in question associated with any incident 
in your experience, that you recall it so readily ? " — " No : 
I recollect it simply as a part of the contents of the book." 
The passage was afterwards found where Parker's memory 
indicated. 



574 THEODORE PARKER. 

Such a power of holding distinctly great masses of mis- 
cellaneous facts, literary and other, will make a man pass 
for a genius when he is none ; but it endangers exactness 
of thought, by, in a measure, dispensing with it. Distinct- 
ness of recollection passes for nicety of discrimination. 
Nothing may be lost ; but nothing may have been, in the 
best sense, gained. A great deal has been said, every now 
and then something is said again, about the inexactness of 
Parker's scholarship • and people make the charge who 
ought to know what they allege, and ought to be above 
making rash or ill-natured assertions. If the charge is 
true, — and I do not believe it is true to any thing like 
the extent claimed, — the inaccuracy must have been due, 
partly to the difficulty of combining delicacy of touch 
with immensity of grasp, the nice analytic power with the 
power of wielding masses of thought, and partly to the 
lack of severe training. Self-taught scholars are rarely nice 
scholars, not having been subjected to the sharp criticism 
which brings the faculties down to delicate discrimina- 
tions. It certainly was not due to heedlessness or loose- 
ness of mind. 

Parker was a thorough workman : he left no stone un- 
turned beneath which might lie a fact. He slighted no 
authorities. As a member of the Oriental Society, a 
company of eight or ten persons who met in a parlor on 
Anniversary Week, he was to read an essay on Moham- 
med. By way of preparation for the task, he renewed his 
acquaintance with the Arabic and Spanish languages in 
order to obtain original materials. Then he collected all 
the books he could find relating to Mohammed, till, stand- 
ing with their titles up, side by side, they — folios, i2mos, 
and all — covered a length of twelve feet on his library 
floor. These books he read, extracted the pith from them 
one by one, and then felt qualified to write the essay. 
The inaccuracies of such a man, supposing his work done 
conscientiously, are not like the inaccuracies of the care- 



TRIBUTES. 575 

less, who are satisfied with slight preparation ; or of the 
dishonest, who use their materials treacherously. That he 
was not a scholar after the German type he admitted him- 
self ; but as certainly was he not a scholar of the loose, 
conceited American type. Scholarship with him was not 
primary, but secondary. He thought in masses, aimed to I 
produce broad effects, and prevailed by virtue of his power 
to hurl mountains of material on the points he wished to 
carry. Of course he was thoughtful in regard to the qual- 
ity of his material ; chose it with care ; handled it with 
skill ; never used what was unfit : at the same time, he was 
less dainty in his choice of special bits than a more fas- 
tidious critic would have been. His inaccuracies, how- 
ever annoying they may be to the mental precisian, did 
not impair the substantial value of his work. Indeed, one 
may suspect that the prodigious bulk of his acquirements 
has encouraged some to conjecture their inexactness. 
It is certain that all who have made the accusation are 
not the persons to substantiate it. Sectarians have made 
it to break the force of his assaults ; dogmatists have 
made it as a substitute for argument ; sciolists have made 
it, jealous of his reputation ; pedants have made it, fail- 
ing to perceive the true points at issue, and mistaking the 
dropping of an iota for the omission of an idea. 

We need not be anxious to defend Mr. Parker's reputa- 
tion for scholarship : that must plead its own cause at 
the bar of scholarship itself. I have said so much, partly 
to account for the insinuations against it, but more to 
guard against allowing to them an undue weight in the 
estimate of his intellectual work. It is admitted that his 
receptive powers were enormous : it is admitted that they 
were only matched by his power to retain what he re- 
ceived. These two admissions, if they do not render sus- 
picion of grave errors unreasonable, do, at least, suggest 
caution in regard to its indulgence. 

For the rest it may as well be confessed frankly, that the 



576 THEODORE PARKER. 

aesthetic department of his mind was imperfect. True, 
the absorption of his life in the business of social reform 
might have suppressed the aesthetic element, even had it 
been strong. But this did not suppress the theological bent 
of his mind, which must, therefore, have been stronger. He 
may have deliberately sacrificed it on the altar of practi- 
cal utilities : but then it should have appeared, and given 
promise of fair proportions, before the pressure of practical 
utilities came ; and this it never did. He read poetry, 
but was not an artist in verse ; he examined works of 
painting and of plastic art, but was not a connoisseur. 
By his own confession, made when he first visited the Old 
World, and during his last visit in Rome, the fine arts 
interested him less than the coarse arts, which fed, clothed, 
housed, and comforted mankind. " I should rather," he 
wrote from Rome in 1859, "be such a man as Franklin than 
a Michael Angelo ; nay, if I had a son, I should rather 
see him a great mechanic who organized use like the late 
George Stephenson in England, than a great painter like 
Rubens, who only copied beauty : in short, I take more 
interest in a cattle-show than in a picture-show. I love 
beauty, — beauty in nature, in art, in the dear face of man 
and woman ; but, when a nation runs after beauty to the 
neglect of use, alas for that people ! " He had no sym- 
pathy with those who lamented the " absence of art " in 
America. The useful arts more than made amends. 
" There is not a saw-mill in Rome ! " he cries. 

He had a better eye for form than for color ; a better 
eye for moral expression than for either. He admired 
most what expressed the highest sentiment in the most 
pathetic manner. As might have been expected, music 
gave him but little delight. He used to call it " the least 
intellectual of the fine arts." Jewels and plate interested 
him, more from their human associations, as heirlooms or 
appendages to certain family estates, than as works of 
art: their richness and preciousness, fineness of shape, 



TRIBUTES. 577 

and delicacy of carving, were blended with something of 
history, with records of service, or memories of social joy. 
The diamonds in Dresden delighted him : but the dia- 
monds in Dresden had belonged to great houses, played 
a part in pageants, decorated beautiful women, shone in 
coronets and belts, graced royal occasions ; thus they 
suggested to the gazer a brilliancy not their own. 

In poetry, it was again the earnest, human quality that 
gave him deepest satisfaction. He loved the field-flowers 
of literature best, — the homely ballads, the songs of the 
people, full of nature, warm with feeling. The German 
legend of Tannhaiiser was familiar to him in every lan- 
guage and dialect. He traced the romantic story of 
Hero and Leander through the whole range of litera- 
ture. His admiration for Mrs. Browning's poetry was not 
unqualified. " Aurora Leigh " he did not care to read a 
second time. Verses that had a sentiment in them, a 
smile, or, better still, a tear, lingered longest in his 
memory. He was fond of quoting poetry in sermons; 
but it was chiefly of a didactic or sentimental character. 
The following lines from Lowell's " Ghost Seer " were 
recited as many as half a dozen times in two years, so 
deep was the impression they made on him : — 

" Hark that rustle of a dress 
Stiff with lavish costliness ! 
Here comes one whose cheek would blush 
But to have her garment brush 
'Gainst the girl whose fingers thin 
Wove the weary broidery in, 
Bending backwards from her toil 
Lest her tears the silk might soil, 
And in midnight's chill and murk 
Stitched her life into the work, 
Shaping from her bitter thought 
Heart's-ease and forget-me-not, 
Satirizing her despair 
With the emblems woven there." 
49 



578 THEODORE PARKER. 

Shakspeare he knew, of course : but it would hardly be 
suspected from his writings ; for, though he did once or 
twice recommend the study of him to young people, he 
rarely quoted him, and seldom spoke of his plays with 
enthusiasm. The Sonnets pleased him most, because 
saturated with personal feeling. He once thought of 
editing the Sonnets. As compared with Homer and 
Sophocles, Shakspeare was nothing to him as a resource 
in weary hours : he was less than Milton, or than Words- 
worth even, as a companion. A passage in the journal 
gives the impression, that in moral qualities, superiority to 
the religious and social prejudices of his time, courage to 
expose . popular follies and fashionable vices, Shakspeare 
was, in his judgment, greatly inferior to Moliere. Play- 
fully, yet half in earnest too, he said one day, "Shak- 
speare, if he were living now, would be a hunker and a 
snob." This absence from his mind of the fine artistic 
quality accounts for the something like crudeness that 
mars occasionally his treatment of the poetical side of 
ancient religions, their scriptures and their dogmas ; and 
even helps to explain certain inaccuracies, which sprang 
from a defect in aesthetic perception often er than from 
infidelity to literal facts. 

The thing of most moment to say of Parker is, that he 
was pre-eminently a man of uses. His gifts, natural and 
acquired, he held in trust for his fellow-men. The higher 
the gifts, the deeper the responsibility. The gifts, as he 
could not but be aware, were great : the sense of duty was, 
therefore, incessant ; in a less capable man it would have 
been excessive. But his keen enjoyment of life, and the 
ease with which he performed his tasks, deprived the bur- 
den of service of its apparent weight. " Let him that is 
greatest among you be your minister, and him that is chief 
among you be the servant of all," was perpetually in his 
heart, but not as it is with the ascetic or the self-immolator. 
His gifts were so rooted in the common earth, had such a 



TRIBUTES. 579 

strong savor of the ground, derived such fragrance and 
color from the soil of humanity, it seemed to cost so 
little to grow them, that their ceaseless consumption by 
pilgrims, wayfarers, and cattle even, caused no thought 
of waste, but rather suggested the inexhaustible resources 
of the nature from which they grew. Pure religion, noble 
institutions, just laws, humane customs, sweet morals, 
lovely manners, all slept in the common sods of humanity, 
and needed but gracious air and sunshine to ripen like 
flowers of paradise. To supply the air and sunshine he 
felt to be a privilege, not a toil ; and, when the labor be- 
came more severe, — the blasting of rocks, the felling of 
trees, the breaking-up of fallow ground, the ploughing 
deep furrows across stubborn fields, — he was cheered in 
it by the vision of the fertility that was to follow. 

Faith in humanity — this was his secret ; love for 
humanity — this was his inspiration; sympathy with hu- 
manity- — this was his consoler. This faith was his key 
to literature, art, philosophy, society. Had he lived to 
be an old man, he would have illustrated his principle 
more amply : he could not have more forcibly demon- 
strated it. 

He was a worker, — he lived for uses ; a reformer, who 
spent his life in efforts to make society more shapely. 
Every thing he had was turned instantly to service. No 
gift was folded in a napkin ; no pot of gold was buried 
in the cellar ; no fine accomplishment was hung up as 
ornament, or kept on the centre-table for the entertain- 
ment of visitors. He was no dilettante. His conscience, 
if nothing else, would have made it impossible for him to 
be a mere scholar toying with books. He could never 
respect Goethe ; he disliked Margaret Fuller ; he de- 
tested Rousseau. The great work which was the dream 
of many years was conceived, not in the interest of litera- 
ture, but in the interest of mankind. We recur once 
more to C. A. Bartol's impressions of him : — 



580 THEODORE PARKER. 

" Right or wrong, I could not recognize in him genius poetic, 
philosophic, or metaphysic, but only immense talent, and a con- 
science since Luther unsurpassed. He was a power, not in the 
realm of imagination, but of fact ; the sheriff of ideas, the 
translator of knowledge into deed. It was the fault of some of 
his contemporaries to be too content with the beautiful percep- 
tions, and his merit to insist on putting all the poetry into 
prose. He was not a master to set the ball in motion, but a 
loyal follower or ally to keep the motion up till every error and 
sin fell before it in the way ; not an organic and incarnate 
revolutionizer, or instaurator of opinion, like Swedenborg, but 
moral from the first brain-cell to his ringers' ends. Having the 
eternal principles in charge, he used the timely opportunity to 
set them in gear ; and, in such zeal and ability, he transcended 
those who were otherwise his superiors or peers. 

" Parker was scientific in not admitting the entity of sin. 
Jesus did not admit it, though he was. conscious of it, if we 
mean by sin the rebuke of the ideal on all the facts of life : but 
he did not dwell on or profess it ; was no professor of sin. 
Why talk of the sickness of the mind more than of the body ? 
But who ever more bravely than this son of a soldier fought 
the Devil, and moved more immediately on his works ? How 
finer seers lagged behind this terrible doer ! His great gro- 
tesque figure was a Yankee reminder of the Greek Socrates ; 
and those of us who discounted aught from his dimensions on 
the score of any disproportion of temper or taste, shall, in any 
revise of our proofs, witness his steady growth in our reverence 
and esteem." 

The above passage is cited as the testimony of a keen 
and friendly critic to the fact of Parker's eminence in the 
domain of use ; which is the point I am insisting on. 
That Dr. Bartol does less than justice to his intellectual 
greatness as a thinker and initiator, as I believe, does not 
detract from the value of his testimony to the man's essen- 
tial grandeur, — that of being an adorer of the Infinite 
Perfection, and a devoted lover of his kind. The " origi- 
nality " of religious reformers must not be severely scru- 
tinized. Jesus borrowed the material he used. His 



Tributes. 581 

ideas existed before he did : his genius lay in his use of 
them. It was the genius of character. He made him- 
self a focus for the solar rays which had been wandering 
through the atmosphere for ages. The thoughts of Paul 
were lying loosely about on the surface of his theologic 
world : he had the genius to combine and apply them. 
Swedenborg is called a seer ; but the substance of his 
vision had been seen by many a fine soul before his eye 
was blessed by it. That Theodore Parker was the peer 
of either of these is by no means claimed ; but they that 
bring against him, as if it were a damning fault, that he 
lacked genius, must consider how far their accusation 
reaches. The highest genius is that which creates uses ; 
and of this he did possess something. The world at 
large felt that he did ; and the testimony of the popular 
consciousness, though not finely discriminating, is sound. 
He is probably not destined still to ascend in the ranks 
of scholars, philosophers, men of letters, or men of pure 
thought ; but that he is destined to hold a nobler place 
in the regards of mankind may be anticipated. 

The influence of his thought has been very great, not 
more in the realm of opinion than in the realm of charac- 
ter j and it is destined to be still greater. A gentleman of 
intelligence, who, in the days of the Unitarian controversy, 
had left his church and minister because he had ex- 
changed with Theodore Parker, resumed his old connec- 
tion some time during the war. It occurred one day to 
his minister to ask pleasantly the reason of his return. 
He replied, " I went away because I could not bear the 
smallest seeming of encouragement to Theodore Parker ; 
but, when I saw the influence of his mind on our soldiers, 
I was forced to make a different estimate of the man." 
The youth of America needs the influence of that mind 
to-day, and will need it for many days to come. 

Theodore Parker looked the man he was, — sturdy, 
strong in legs and arms, with a muscular grip of the hand 
49* 



582 THEODORE PARKER. 

that knit one to him at once, and a planted foot that 
asserted a whole man's title to stand on the planet. The 
lower portion of his face was not good, — strong and firm, 
but a little grim in expression. His lip curled easily ; and 
a slightly Socratic nose had possibilities of sarcasm which 
the stranger might find repellent. . The glory of the head 
was the massive dome, smooth and lofty, which suggested 
the man of thought ; and underneath it the clear, frank 
blue eye, that invited confidence, but had in it the gleam 
of a sword to pierce through hypocrisy, and cleave false- 
hood to the ground. Not a handsome man, seraphic, 
poetic ; not the ideal of the philosopher, the saint, or even 
the prophet ; a man of the people rather ; a working-man, 
to look at him, but a working-man with such tools as 
prophets, philosophers, and saints use ; a true American if 
there ever was one ; the best working-plan of ah Ameri- 
can yet produced. 



INDEX. 



A. 



Adams, C. F., 401. 

Adams, J. Q., 399. 

Adventures of a day, 249. 

"Advertiser," Daily, 158. 

Agassiz, 326, 371. 

Alcott, Bronson, 96, 98, 113, 123, 125, 

126, 128, 139, 141, 425. 
Alger, Rev. William, letter to, 506. 
Allen, Joseph, letters to, 217, 236. 
Andrew, John A., 215, 429. 
Andrews, Samuel P., 80; letters to, 

82, 84, 86, 94, 506. 
Anniversary, twelfth, of settlement, 

3*4,3*5- 

"Antiquary," 36. 
Anti-Sabbath Convention, 354. 
Augustine, 53, 54, 120. 



B. 



Bancroft, George, 113 ; letter to, 382. 
Banks, N. P., 445. 
Barnard, Mr., letter to, 282. 
Barnstable, life at, 69-76. 
Bartol, Rev. C. A., 42, 168, 275, 580. 
Baur, 205. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 441 ; contrast- 
ed with Theodore Parker, 341. 
Beecher, Rev. Lyman, 29, 51. 



Berry-street Conference, 416. 

Betrothal, 35. 

Bigelow, Mr. and Mrs. J., letter to, 

258. 
Billings, Mr. H., letter to, 474. 
Birthday-record, 481. 
Birthplace, 1. 
Blake, Admiral, 298. 
Blodgett, Levi, letter of, 114. 
Boston Committee of Vigilance, 401. 
Boston Ministerial Association, 160. 
Bowditch, Dr., letter to, 358. 
Bowman, Dr., letters to, 280, 281. 
Boyhood, 10-27. 
Brace, Charles L., 365. 
Bradford, Mr., 63. 
Bridges, Mrs. Julia, letter to, 277. 
Brook Farm, 138. 
Brown, John, 278, 280, 379, 449, 453, 

455, 527; farewell of, 455. 
Brownson, Orestes, 134, 139. 
Buchanan, James, 380, 448. 
Burns, Anthony, 422, 428. 
Burns, Robert, 304. 



Cabot, F. S., letter to, 60. 
Cabot, Lydia D., 35, 39, ill. 
Calhoun, J. C, 63, 442. 
Cambridge, 37. 

583 



5§4 



INDEX. 



Camp-meeting, 73, 74. 

Candidate, the, 67-87. 

Capital punishment, 363. 

Cappen Parker, 1. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 140. 

Catacombs, 193. 

Catholic Church, 195, 207. 

Central New York, visit to, 491. 

Channing, Dr., 29, 35, 55, 88, 96-98, 
107, "2, 133, 150, 176, 177, 217, 
298, 340, 349- 

Channing, Dr., compared with Theo- 
dore Parker, 340. 

Channing, William E., 399. 

Channing, William F., 424. 

Channing, William H., 105, 125. 

Chapin, Dr., 441. 

Character, 564. 

Chardon-street Convention, 133. 

Chase, Salmon P., 444. 

Child, Lydia M., 184; letter to, 507. 

"Childe Harold," 38. 

Cholmondeley, Thomas, 513. 

Christ, 118. 

Christendom at Rome, 191. 

Christening, 16. 

Church, 136. 

Church, idea of, 231. 

City, the Eternal, 531, 536. 

Clarke, J. F., 106, 215, 223, 420, 542. 

Clay, Henry, 63, 442. 

Cobbe, Frances Power, 315, 369, 514. 

Codex Matrimonius, 87. 

Coleridge, 140. 

Commemorative exercises, 546. 

Commercial panic of 1857, 463. 

Communion, 121. 

Concord, 63, 126. 

Conflict renewed, 210-241. 

Correspondence, specimens of, 252- 

33i- 
Counsel for defence, 429. 
Craft, William and Ellen, 400, 403, 

406, 407, 514. 
Cranch, C. P., 43, 45, 90, 126. 
Crittenden, Attorney-General, 399. 
Cuba, annexation of, 320. 



Curtis, B. R., 429. 
Curtis, George T., 415. 



Dana, R. H., 422, 426. 

Dante, 57. 

Darwinism, 179. 

Death, 535 ; of father, 77, 283. 

Departure, 508. 

Desor, Prof., 316, 318, 322, 326, 371 ; 
letters from, 558-564. 

De Wette, 54, 205 ; " Biblical Dog- 
matics," 117; translation from, 75, 
85, 86, 177, 180, 207. 

Dewey, Rev. Orville, 52, 218, 417. 

"Dial," 139, 164, 223. 

Dingee, Martha, letter to, 260. 

" Discourse of Matters pertaining to 
Religion," 161. 

Divinity School, 30, 33, 37, 41. 

Divorce, 369. 

Doctors' counsel, 516. 

Dwight, John, 43, 45, 87. 

Dyer, R. W., 127. 



Early Christians, 120. 

Early theological views, 52. 

Eddy, Mrs. Eliza P., letter to, 278. 

Ellis, Mr. Charles, letters to, 363, 401, 
426, 429. 

Ellis, George E., letter to, 106. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 63, 75, 97, 
105, 106, 118, 121, 125, 152, 160, 
300, 309, 329, 375, 437, 441, 442, 

454- 
Emigrant-aid Society, 438. 
Englishmen, 471. 
Europe, first visit to, 183, 210 ; second 

visit to, 513, 536. 
European politics, 318, 324. 
"Examiner," 121. 
Exchanges, 122, 158. 
Exeter Place, 241-258. 
Extracts from journal, 60, 61, 414. 



INDEX. 



585 



F. 

Failing health, 477-50S. 

Family, 2, 3. 

"Farbenlehre," 109. 

Farewell to Music-hall Society, 504. 

Felton, Prof., letter to, 257. 

Ferment of thought, 125, 147. 

Fillmore, Millard, 399, 409. 

Fiske, George, 20, 22, 23. 

Floumoy, Mr., letter to, 390. 

Flowers, 242. 

Fock, Dr., 256, 287. 

Follen, Dr. Charles, 96, 107, 205, 255. 

Forbes, Hugh, 459, 461. 

Formulas, 387. 

France, 472. 

Francis, Rev. Convers, 33, 34, 47, 63, 
68, 87, 9°> 99, 108, 112, 113, 125, 
139, 147, 161, 173, 180, 208, 348; 
letters to, 115, 200. 

Fraternity course, 501. 

Freeman. Dr., 167. 

Fremont, Gen., 380, 436, 438. 

Fugitive-slave Bill, 378. 

Fuller, Margaret, 140, 579. 



Gannett, Rev. E. S., 55, 168, 170, 223. 

Garrett, Thomas, 380. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 113, 349, 

354, 356, 454- 
Geary, Gov., 438. 
German books, 148. 
Germans, 469. 
Goethe, 56, 58, 108, 109, 204, 299, 

579- 
Groton Convention, 133. 
Gurowski, 322. 

H. 

Hale, John P., letters to, 393, 429, 

444, 447, 461. 
Hallett, B. F., 429. 
Harvard, 26, 27. 



Hastings, John, 19. 

Health-scale, 480. 

Hebrew, 33, 47. 

Hedge, Frederic H., 96, 125. 

Hegelianism, lecture on, 201. 

" Herald," New- York, 158. 

Heretics, 120. 

Higginson, T. W., 325, 327, 365, 397, 

425, 429, 436, 458, 460, 478. 
Hollis-street Society, 164. 
Home, 12-27. 
Homer, 35. 

Hopper, Isaac T., 184. 
Household, 241. 
Howe, Julia Ward, 321, 324. 
Howe, Dr., 321, 322, 324, 344,-349, 

401, 422, 437, 459, 460, 461. 
Humboldt, Alexander von, 323. 
Hunt, Miss, letters to, 438, 439, 464, 

4/o, 474> 482, 483, 490, 491. 

I. 

Impressions of convention at Groton, 
132. 



Jerome, 53, 120. 
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 35. 

K. 

Kansas State Committee, 453. 
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 379, 420. 
Kansas, war in, 435-475. 
Kidnappers, proclamation concerning, 

413- 
Kossuth, 322, 347. 
Kiichler, Lorenzo, 518. 

L. 

Languages, 47. 

" Latimer Journal," 399. 

Leo X., 469. 

Lesley, Peter, letter to, 325. 

Library, 242. 



5 86 



INDEX. 



Light reading, 485. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 380. 

Loring, Charles G., 296. 

Loring, Ellis Gray, 405. 

Loring, Edward Greely, 421. 

Lowell, Dr., 401. 

Lowell, Russell, "Ghost-Seer," 577. 

M. 

Mann, Horace, letter to, 394. 

Marriage, letters on, 366, 369. 

Martineau, Harriet, yj. 

Martineau, Rev. James, 207 ; letter to, 
407. 

Masonic Temple, 216. 

" Massachusetts Quarterly Review," 
396. , 

Mathieu, M., "Etudes Clmiques," 
321. 

May, Samuel J., 217, 299, 325, 416; 
letters to, 286, 288. 

Meeting of Boston Ministerial As- 
sociation, 161. 

Melodeon, 216, 230, 333. 

Memory, retentiveness of, 573. 

Mexican War, 363, 378. 

Michelet, M., 376. 

Militia. 25. 

Millard Fillmore, 399, 409. 

Milton, 35, 304. 

Ministry in Boston, 216. 

Miracles, 53. 

Moliere, 578. 

Moire, Henry, 108, 124. 

Morrison, John, 429. 

Mother, 7, 15. 

Munch, Rev. Friederich, letter to, 255. 

Music Hall, 332 ; last sermon in, 504 ; 
audiences, 335. 



N. 

Neighbors, 11. 

New Bedford, 481. 

" New Crime against Humanity," 429. 

New York, 136, 184. 



Nitsch, 206. 

Non-resistant Convention, 133; non- 
resistance, 360. 
Northfield, 75, 76, 82. 
Norton, Andrews, 106, 113, 114, 175. 
Novel-reading, 58, in. 
Nute, Rev. Mr., 436, 438. 



O. 

Origen, 53. 

Ossawattomie Brown, 452. 
Oxford, 185. 

P. 

Paine, Thomas, 179. 

Palfrey, Dr., 38, 42, 47, 99 ; letter to, 

388. 
Palmer, Joseph, 127. 
Parentage, 2. 

Parker, A. M., letter to, 268. 
Parker, E. G., " " 422. 
Park r, J. B., " " 292. 
Parker, M. M., " " 269. 
Parker family, 2, 3. 
Parkman, Dr., 114, 223. 
Parsons, Theophilus, 106. 
Pastor, the, 241, 252. 
Patterson, J. B., letter to, 267. 
Paul and Christianity, 119. 
Peabody, E. P., 113; letters to, 123, 

143- 
Pedestrianism, no. 
Pemberton Mill at Lawrence, 470. 
"Perishing Classes," sermon on, 364. 
Personality of God, 97, 98. 
Phillips, Mr. Jonathan, 96. 
Phillips, Wendell, 96, 241, 349, 365, 

401, 422, 424, 429. 
Pierce, Franklin, 379, 426, 437. 
Pierpont, Rev. John, 87, 164, 170, 

223, 329, 357; letter to, 276. 
Plato, 109, 144. 
Poetry, love of , 577. 
Pope, the, 195, 197. 
Porter, Prof., 344. 



INDEX. 



587 



Prayers, 145 ; for Theodore Parker, 

494- 
Preacher, the, 332, 351. 
Preaching, 6S ; intellectual influence 

of, 350. 
Prescott, 441 ; histories, review of, 397. 
Prisons, 363. 

Progressive Friends, sermons to, 496. 
Prohibition, 359. 
Proudman, Samuel T., 429. 
Psalms of David, ^8. 
Putnam, Dr., 6S, 264. 

Q- 

Quincy, Josiah, 347, 402, 441. 



Reading, 44, 47, 89, 108, 109. 

Reeder, Gov., 437. 

Reformer, the, 352, 376. 

Reform School, 364. 

Revival of 1S5S, 494. 

Rhode Island and Delaware, 381. 

Richter, Jean Paul, 99, 108. 

Ripley, Dr., 126. 

Ripley, Mr. George, 78, 87, 91, 96, 

97, 107, 112, 114, 125,. 126, 136, 

137, 147, 167, 174, 3 J 4; letter to, 

3 2 9- 
Robbins, Rev. Chandler, 87, 106, 166, 

16S, 314; letter from, 16S. 
Roman friends, 525. 
Rome, 190 ; departure from, 197. 
Rules of living, 4S, 49. 
Russell, George R., 89, 208, 422. 
Russell, Mrs., 250. 



Sabbath and Sunday, 354. 
Salem, 63, 79. 
Saltonstall, Sir Richard, 2. 
Sanborn, Charles H., 435. 
Sanborn, F. B., 273, 449, 460. 
Sanford, Albert, 371. 
Sargent, Rev. John T., 212, 223, 284, 
365, 408. 



J Saturday-afternoon class, 237. 
j Schedule of labors, 81. 
I Schemes of work, 93, 94. 
j Schenkel, 206. 
j Scholarship, 574. 
1 School, 28, 30. 
j School-days, 18. 
Schleiermacher, 106. 
Scott, Sir Walter, 36, 37. 
"Scriptural Interpreter," 55. 
Search, the, 508. 
Seaver, Mr. Horace, 179. 
Sennott, Mr., 437. 
Sermon-topics, 338. 
Seward, Hon. William H., 461 ; letter 

to, 442. 
Shadiach, 412. 

Shakspeare, 6, 109, 269, 304, 578. 
Shaw, Francis G., 89, 414. 
Shaw, Lemuel, 416. 
Shelley, 106. 
Ship-board, 184. 
Siljestrom, 325. 
Silsbee, Rev. Mr., 72, 75, 79, 88, 99, 

114, 272, 298. 
Simmons, Rev. Mr., ordination, 107. 
Sims, Thomas, 415, 418. 
Sketches of work, 112. 
j Slavery, fight with, 376, 435. 
Smith, Hon. Gerritt, 451. 
Smith, Increase, letter to, 355. 
Smith, Isaac, 114. 
Smith, Marianne, 22. 
Snell, Mr., 332. 
Socialism, 134. 
Sonnets, 60, 240, 251, 331, 476, 507, 

520, 536. 
South-Boston sermon, 152, 166. 
Spiritualism, 372. 
Spring Street, 88. 
Spurgeon, 340. 
Sterling, 207. 
Stetson, Caleb, 87. 
Stowell, Martin, 429. 
Stuart, Moses, 113. 
Study, 28, 117. 
Stearns, George L., 458, 461. 



5 88 



INDEX. 



Stearns, Hannah, 7. 

Stevenson, Miss H., 241, 254, 297, 

3 X 5> 3 22 , 365, 3 66 5 letters to, 385, 

4°!, 479, S3 1 - 
St. Hilaire, Geoffrey, 186. 
Strauss, 91, 121, 206. 
Sturgis, William, 258. 
Sumner, Charles, 302, 309, 329, 349, 

3 Sl , 395, 415, 4i6, 440, 444, 445, 

447, 474 ; letter to, 362. 
Suffrage, woman, 369. 
Sunday school, 287. 
Suttle, Charles F., 421. 
Swedenborg, 145 ; Hobart's Life of, 

372. 
Swift, John L., 423. 

T. 
Taylor, Gen., 378. 
Teaching, 24, 28. 
Temperance, 357. 
Tertullian, 53, 120. 
Texas, annexation of, 378. 
Thackeray, 309. 
Thomas, S. J., 422. 
Thoreau, 455. 
Thursday Lecture, 213. 
Tombs, 136, 184. 
Transcendentalism, 125. 
Transcendental movement in Eng- 
land, 149 ; in France, 149. 
Translations, 486. 

U. 
" Underground Railroad," 380. 
Unitarian controversy, 147-182. 
Universalists, 218. 



V. 



Vacation, 67. 



Verses, 59. 

Vigilance Committee, 399. 
Visitation Day, 65. 
Visitors, 245. 
Voltaire, 299. 

W. 

Wagon-journey, 497. 

Walker, Dr., 98, 107. 

Walker, Mr. George, 453. 

Waltham, 25, 26, 85. 

" Wanderjahre," 58. 

War, 361. 

Wares, 37, 42, 87, 106, 107, 314. 

Washington, 63. 

Wasson, Rev. D. A., letters to, 254, 

3 2 7- 
Waterston, Rev. R. C, 168, 216. 
Watertown, life in, 33. 
Webster, Daniel, 324, 325, 340, 346, 

379, 398, 4 2 °, 44 1 - 
Webster, Prof., 363. 
Weiss, Rev. Mr., 17, 33, 126, 253, 

368, 486. 
West Indies, 508, 511. 
West Roxbury, 85, 87, 123, 211, 212, 

230. 
Whipple, Charles K., 401. 
White, Etta M., letter to, 265. 
White, Pres., 47. 
Whitefield, Parker and, 334. 
Wilcox, H. A., letter to, 266. 
Wilder, Mr., 30. 
Wilkinson, Dr., 254. 
Williamson, Passmore, letter to, 445. 
Wilmington, Del., 380. 
Wilson, Henry, letter to, 445. 
Woodbury, Judge, 403. 
Woman, weak, 36; woman, 364. 
Wordsworth, 298. 






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